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THE

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY.

FROM THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE ABOUTION OF
PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

By HENEY HAET MILMAN, D.D.,

DEAN OF ST. FAX7L S.

IX THREE VOLUMES.— Vol. If.

J^ liTE-W- JLIiTX) ItEVIS333D ETDITIOliT .

LONDON;
JOHN MUKKAT, ALBEMAELE STKEET.

1875.

The right qf Trantlatioa it reterved.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMVOBD 8TBKET AND CHARI2T0 CROSS.

t J->7-'f

CONTENTS OF YOL IL

BOOK II. — continued.

CHAPTEE IV.

Cbnstianity to the close of the First Century — Constitution
of Christian Chniobes « Page 1

CHAPTEE V.

Christianity and Orientalism .. .. 30

CHAPTEE VL

Christianity during the prosperous period of the Roman
Empire B8

CHAPTEE VII.
Christianity and Maipus Aurelius the Philosopher 112

CHAPTEE VIII.

j Fourth Period — Christianity under the Successors of Marcus

Aurelius 149

CHAPTEE IX.

The Persecution under Diocletian • .. 204

ir CONTENTS OF VOL. II

BOOK IIL

CHAPTEE L
Constantine Page 241

CHAPTEE IL

Constantine becomes sole Emperor 312

CHAPTEE IIL
Foundation of Constantinople .. .. 330

OHAPTBB IV.
Trinitarian Controversy •• • • 350

OHAPTBB V.

Christianity imder the Sods of Oanstantlne .. ^5

OHAPTBB VL
Julian 4id

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY,

BOOK 1 1. — cotdinued.

CHAPTER IV.

Christianity to the Close of the First Century. — Constitution of

Christian Churches.

The changes in the moral are usually wrought as imper-
ceptibly as those in the physical world. Had Great revo-
any wise man, either convinced of the divine and gradual,
origin of Christianity, or even contemplating with phi-
losophical sagacity the essential nature of the new
religion and the existing state of the human mind,
ventured to predict that from the ashes of these obscure
men would arise a moral sovereignty more extensive
and lasting than that of the Caesars ; that buildings
more splendid.than any which adorned the new marble
city, now rising from the ruins of the conflagration,
would be dedicated to their names, and maintain their
reverence for an incalculably longer period ; such vati-
cinations would have met the fate inseparable from the
wisdom which outstrips its age, would have been scorned
by contemporary pride, and only admired, after their
accomplishment, by late posterity. The slight and con-
temptuous notice excited by Christianity during the first
century of its promulgation is in strict accordance with
tliis ordinary development of the great and lasting revo«

VOL. II. ^

2 FOUR PERIODS OF IMPERIAL HISTORY. Book II.

lutions in human affaire. The moral world has some-
times, indeed, its volcanic explosions, which suddenly
and violently convulse and reform the order of things ;
but ita more enduring changes are in general produced
by the slow and silent workings of opinions, remotely
prepared and gradually expanding to their mature and
irresistible inHuence. In default, therefore, of real in-
formation as to the secret but simultaneous progress of
Christianity in so many quarters, and among all ranks,
we are left to speculate on the influence of the passing
events of the time, and of the changes in the public
mind, whetlier favourable or prejudicial to the cause of
Christianity, catching only faiot and uncertain gleams
of its peculiar history through the confused and rapidly
changing course of public atfaii-s.

The Imperial history from the first promulgation of

ijjp^nji Christianity down to the accession of Cou-

vidSiVto fitantine, divides itself into four distinct, but

tourperiodt. „jigqujii periods. More than thirty years are

occupied by the line of the first Ctesars, rather less by

the conflicts which followed the death of Nero, and tlie

government of the Flavian dynasty. The first years of

Trajan, who ascended the Imperial throne a.d. 98,

'. nearly synchronize with tlie opening of the second

\ \ century of CluHstiaaity ; and that splendid period of

\ 1 internal peace and advancing civilisation, of wealth,

1 land of prosperity, which has been described as the hap-

\ Ipiest in the annals of mankind, extends over the first

eighty years of tJiat century." Down to the accession of

Constantine, nearly at the commencement of the fourth

Essai Bur I'Epoque d>
itoire Jiomaine la plus h-i^ra.'"
le Genre Hnmain. Par

CHAP. IV. FIRST PERIOD, TO DEATH OF NERO. 3

century, the Empire became, like the great monarchies of
the East, the prize of successful ambition and enterprise ;
almost every change of ruler is a change of dynasty ;
and already the borders of the Empire have ceased to be
respected by the menacing, the conquering Barbarians.

It is remarkable how singularly the political cha-
racter of each period was calculated to advance First period,
the growth of Christianity. erf Nero.

During the first of these periods, the Government,
though it still held in respect the old republican institu-
tions, was, if not in form, in its administration purely
desj)otic. The state centered in the person of the Em-
peror. This kind of hereditary autocracy is essentially
selfish ; it is content with averting or punishing plots
against the person, or detecting and crushing conspi-
racies against the power, of the existing monarch. To
those more remote or secret changes which are working
in the depths of society, eventually perhaps threatening
the existence of the monarchy, or the stability of all the
social relations, it is blind or indifferent.^ It has neither
sagacity to discern, intelligence to comprehend, nor
even the disinterested zeal for the perpetuation of its
own despotism, to counteract such distant and contin-
gent dangers. Of all innovations it is, in general, sen-
sitively jealous ; but they must be palpable and manifest,
and directly clashing with the passions or exciting the
fears of the sovereign. Even these are met by tempo-
rary measures. When an outcry was raised against the
Egyptian religion as dangerous to public morality, an
edict commanded the expulsion of its votaries from the
city. When the superstition of the Emperor shuddered

^ •'Saevi proximis ingruunt.** In
this one pregnant sentence uf Tacitus
is explained the political secret, that the

mass of the people have sometimes
been comparatively unoppressed und«l
the most sangulnarj tyranny.

t CHBISTIANITY UNDER NERO. Book IL

at the predictions of the Mathematicians, the whole fra-
ternity fell under the same interdict. When the public
peace was disturbed by the dissensions among the Jewish
population of Eome, the summary sentence of Claudius
visited both Jews and Christians with the same indif-
ferent severity. So the Neronian persecution was an
accident arising out of the fire at Eome, no part of a
systematic poUtical plan for the suppression of foreign
religions. It might have fallen on any other sect or
body of men who might have been designated as victims
to appease the popular resentment. The provincial ad-
ministrations would be actuated by the same principles
as the central government, and be alike indifferent to
the quiet progress of opinions, however dangerous to the
existing order of things. Unless some breach of the
public peace demanded their interference, they would
i-arely put forth their power; and, content with the
maintenance of order, the regular collection of the re-
venue, the more rapacious with the punctual payment
of their own exactions, the more enlightened with the
improvement and embellishment of the cities under
their charge, they would look on the rise and propaga-
tion of a new religion with no more concern than that
of a new philosophic sect, particularly in the eastern
part of the empire, where the religions were in general
more foreign to the character of the Greek or Boman
Polytheism. The popular feeling during this first period
would only under peculiar circumstances outstrip the acti-
vity of the Government. Accustomed to the separate
worship of the Jews, to the many Christianity appeared
at first only as a modification of that belief. Local
jealousies or personal animosities might in different
places excite a more active hostiL'ty. In Bome it is
evident that the people were only worked up to find in-

Ohap. IV.

ITS GRADUAL PROGRESS.

buman delight in the sufferings of the Christians, by the
misrepresentations of the Government, by superstitious
solicitude to find some victims to appease the angry
Gods, and that strange consolation of human misery, the
delight of wreaking vengeance on whomsoever it car
possibly implicate as the cause of the calamity.

During the whole, then, of this first period, to the
death of Nero, both the primitive obscurity of Chris-
tianity, and the transient importance it assumed, as a
dangerous enemy of the people of Eome, and subse-
quently as the guiltless victim of popular vengeance,
would tend to its eventual progress. Its own innate acti-
vity, with all the force which it carried with it, both in its
internal and external impulse, would propagate it exten-
sively in the inferior and middle classes of society ; while. .
though the great mass of the higher orders wouldjlil^'Y^
remain unacquainted with its real nature, and \vdth its
relation to its parent Judaism, it was quite enough
before the public attention to awaken the curiosity of
the more inquiring, and to excite the interest of those
who were seriously concerned in the moral advancement
of mankind. In many quarters, it is far from impossible
that the strong revulsion of the public mind against
Nero, after his death, may have extended some com-
miseration towards his innocent victims : ° that the
Christians were acquitted by the pop\ilar feeling of any
real eonnexion with the fire at Rome, appears evident
from Tacitus, who retreats into vague expressions of
general scorn and animosity.* At all events, the perse-
cution must have had the effect of raising the im-

< Thig wag the case even in £cine.
'* (Jnde quanqoam ad versus sontes et
Dovissiina exempla mentog, miseratio
oriehatiir, tanquam non utilitate pab-

Iic&, sed in saevitiam unius abgu-
merentur." Tac. An. xv. 44.
' Odio humani geneiis convicti.

6 SECOND PERIOD — TRAJ AIT. Book IL

portance of Christianity, so as to force it upon the notice
of many who might otherwise have been ignorant of its
existence. The new and peculiar fortitude with which
the suflferers endured their unprecedented trials, would
strongly recommend it to those who were dissatisfied
with the moral power of their old religion; while on the
other hand it was yet too feeble and obscure to provoke
a systematic plan for its suppression.

During the second period of the first century, from A.D.
secoDd period. 68 to 98, the date of the accession of Trajan,
ifon^f T^ the larger portion was occupied by the reign of
^*"- Domitian, a tyrant in whom the successors of

Augustus might appear to revive, both in the monstrous
vices of his personal character, and of his government.
Of the Flavian dynasty, the father alone, Vespasian,
from the comprehensive vigour of his mind, perhaps
from his knowledge of the Jewish character and reli-
gion, obtained during his residence in the East, was
likely to estimate the bearings and future prospects of
Christianity. But the total subjugation of Judaea, and
the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, having
reduced the religious parents of the Christians to so low
a state, their nation, and consequently their religion,
being, according to the ordinary course of events, likely
to mingle up with and become absorbed in the general
population of the Roman empire, Christianity, it might
reasonably be supposed, would scarcely survive its
original stock, and might be safely left to bum out by
the same gradual process of extinction. Besides this,
the strong mind of Vespasian was fully occupied by the
restoration of order in the capital and in the provinces,
and in fixing on a firm basis the yet unsettled authority
of the Flavian dynasty. A more formidable, because
more immediate, danger threatened* the existing ordei

Chap. IV.

THE STOICS— TEMPLE TAX.

of things. The awful genius of Roman liberty had
entered into an alliance with the higher philosophy of
the time. Eepublican stoicism, brooding in stoic pMio-
the noblest minds of Rome, looked back, with ^p*^«"-
vain though passionate regret, to the free institutions of
their ancestors, and demanded the old liberty of action.
It was this dangerous movement — not the new and
humble religion, which calmly acquiesced in all political
changes, ajid contented itself with liberty of thought
and opinion — that put to the test the prudence and
moderation of the Emperor Vespasian. It was the
spirit of Cato, not of Christ, which he found it neces-
sary to control. The enemy before whom he trembled
was the patriot Thrasea, not the Apostle St. John, who
was silently winning over Ephesus to the new faith.
The edict of expulsion from Rome fell not on the wor-
shippers of foreign religions, but on the philosophers, a
comprehensive term, but which was probably limited to
those whose opinions were considered dangerous to the
Impeiial authority.®

It was only with the new fiscal regulations of the
rapacious and parsimonious Vespasian that the Chris-
tians were accidentally implicated. The Emperor con-
tinued to levy the capitation tax, which had been
willingly and proudly paid by the Jews throughout the
empire for the maintenance of their own Temple at
Jerusalem, for the restoration of the idolatrous fane of
the Capitoline Jupiter, which had been destroyed in the
civil contests. The Jew submitted with sullen
reluctance to this insulting exaction; but
even the hope of escaping it would not incline him to

Temple taiL

• Tadt. Hist iv. 4-9. Dion Cas-
uuB, liri. 13. Suetonias, Vespas. 15.

Tillemont, Hist, des Empeperirs: V»-
pasian. Art. 15.

CONDITION OF JEWS AFTER THE WAR. Book II.

disguise or dissemble his faith. But the Judaizing
Christian, and even the Christian of Jewish descent, who
had entirely thrown ofif his religion, yet was marked by
the indelible sign of his race, was placed in a singularly
perplexing position.' The rapacious pubUcan, who
farmed the tax, was not likely to draw any true distinc-
tion among those whose features, connexions, names, and
notorious descent, still designated them as liable to the
tax : his coarser mind would consider the profession of
Christianity as a subterfuge to escape a yexatious im-
post But to the Jewish Christian of St. Paul's opinions,
the unresisted payment of the burthen, however insig-
nificant, and to which he was not bound, either by the
letter or the spirit of the edict, was an acknowledgment
of his unconverted Judaism, of his being still under the
Law, as well as an indirect contribution to the mainte-
nance of heathenism. It is difiScult to suppose that
those who were brought before the public tribunal,
as claiming an exemption from the tax, and exposed to
the most indecent examination of their Jewish de-
scent, were any other than this class of Judaizing
Christians.

In other respects, the connexion of the Christians
with the Jews could not but affect their place in that in-
discriminating pubhc estimation which stiU, in general,
notwithstanding the Neronian persecution, confounded
Change in the them toffcther. The Jewish war appears to

condition and . ^^ . i. • i i • i

estimauon of havo made a sreat alteration both m the con-
after the war ditiou of the raco of Isracl, and in the popular
sentiment towards them. From aversion as a sullen

' Dion Cassius, edit. Reimar, with
his notes, lib. Izvi. p. 1082. Sueto-
nius in Dom. y. 12. Martial, Tii. 14.

Basnage, Histoire dea Joiia, toI. vii
ch. li. p. 304.

Chap. IV. SO-CALLED EDICT OF DOMITIAN. 9

and unsocial, they were now looked upon with hatred
and contempt, as a fierce, a desperate, and an enslaved
race. Some of the higher orders, Agrippa and Josephus
the historian, maintained a respectable, and eyen an
eminent rank at Eome ; but the provinces were overrun
by swarms of Jewish slaves, or miserable fugitives, re-
duced by necessity to the meanest occupations, and
lowering their minds to their sordid and beggarly con-
dition.^ As then to some of the Eomans the Christian
assertion of religious freedom would seem closely allied
with the Jewish attempt to obtain civil independence,
they might appear, especially to those in authority, to
have inherited the intractable and insubordinate spirit
of their religious forefathers ; so, on the other hand, in
some places, the Christian might be dragged down, in
the popular apprehension, to the level of the fallen and
outcast Jew. Thus, while Christianity in fact was be-
coming more and more alienated from Judaism, and
even assuming the most hostile position, the Eoman
rulers would be the last to discern the widening breach,
or to discriminate between that religious confederacy
which was destined to absorb within it all the subjects
of the Eoman empire, and that race which was to remain
in its social isolation, neither blended into the general
mass of mankind, nor admitting any other within its in-
superable pale. If the singular story related The descend-

__ ■*• o ./ anta of the

by Hegesippus** concerning the family of our brethren of
Lord deserves credit, even the descendants of brought be-
His house were endangered by their yet un- tnbnnaL
broken connexion with the Jewish race. Domitian is
said to have issued an edict for the extermination of the
whole house of David, in order to annihilate for ever the

t Compare Hist, of the Jews, ii. 454. ^ Eusebius, iii. 20.

10 IMPROBABILITY OP THE STOBY. Book II.

hope of the Messiah, which still brooded with dangerous
excitement in the Jewish mind. The grandsons of
St. Jude, "the brother of the Lord," were denounced
by certain heretics as belonging to the proscribed
family, and brought before the tribunal of the Em-
peror, or, more probably, that of the Procurator of
Judaea.* They acknowledged their descent from the
royal race, and their relationship to the Messiah ; but
in Christian language they asserted that the kingdom
which they expected was purely spiritual and angelic,
and only to commence at the end of the world, after the
return to judgement. Their poverty, rather than their
renunciation of all temporal views, was their security.
They were peasants, whose hands were hardened with
toil, and whose whole property was a farm of about
twenty-four English acres, and of the value of 9000
drachms, or about three hundred pounds sterling. This
they cultivated by their own labour, and regularly paid
the appointed tribute. They were released as too hum-
ble and too harmless to be dangerous to the Eoman
authority, and Domitian, according to the singularly
inconsistent account, proceeded to annul his edict of
persecution against the Christians. •

Like all the stories which rest on the sole authority of
Hegesippus, this has a very fabulous air. At no period
were the hopes of the Messiah entertained by the Jews
so little likely to awaken the jealousy of the Emperor
as in the reign of Domitian. The Jewish mind was still
stunned, as it were, by the recent blow : the whole land
was in a state of iron subjection. Nor was it till the
latter part of the reign of Trajan, and that of Hadrian,
that they rallied for their last desperate and conclusive

* Gibbon thus modifies the story, to which he appeai-s to give some crxiit.

Chju». IV. FLAVIUS CLEMENS. 11

struggle for independence. Nor, however indistinct the
line of demarcation between the Jews and the Chris-
tians, is it easy to trace the connexion between the
stem precaution for the preservation of the peace of the
Eastern world and the stability of the Empire against
any enthusiastic aspirant after an universal sovereignty,
with what is sometimes called the second great persecu-
tion of Christianity; for the exterminating edict was
aimed at a single &mily, and at the extinction of a
purely Jewish tenet, though it may be admitted that,
even yet, the immediate return of the Messiah to reign
on earth was dominant among most of the Jewish
Christians of Palestine. Even if true, this edict was
rather the hasty and violent expedient of an arbitrary
sovereign, trembling for his personal security, and
watchful to avert danger from his throne, than a pro-
found and vigorous policy, which aimed at the suppres-
sion of a new religion, declaredly hostile, and threaten-
ing the existence of the established Pol3rtheism.

Christianity, however, appears to have forced itsell
upon the knowledge and the fears of Domitian in a more
unexpected quarter — the bosom of his own family.^ Of
his two cousins-german, the sons of Flavins Sabinus,
the one fell an early victim to his jealous ap- j^^^,
prehensions. The other. Flavins Clemens, is ^*®°*^'
described by the epigrammatic biographer of the Caesars
as a man of the most contemptible indolence of cha-
racter. His peaceful kinsman, instead of exciting the
fears, enjoyed, for some time, the favour, of Domitian.
He received in marriage Domitilla, the niece of the
Bmperor ; his children were adopted as heirs to tlie

^ Soetoniiis, in Domit. c 15. Dion Cassias, Ixvii. 14. EuselnuB, iii IK

i2 PEESECUTION UNDER DOMITIAN. Book II.

throne ; Clemens himself obtained the consulship. On
a sudden these harmless kinsmen became dangerous
conspirators ; they were arraigned on the unprecedented
charge of Atheism and Jewish manners ; the husband,
Clemens, was put to death; the wife, Domitilla,
banished to the desert island, either of Pontia, or Pan-
dataria. The crime of Atheism was afterwards the
common popular charge against the Christians; the
charge to which, in all ages, those are exposed who are
superior to the vulgar notion of the Deity. But it was
a charge never advanced against Judaism: coupled,
therefore, with that of Jewish manners, it is unintelli-
gible, unless it refers to Christianity. Nor is it im-
probable that the contemptible want of energy, ascribed
by Suetonius to Flavins Clemens, might be that un-
ambitious superiority to the world which characterised
the early Christians. Clemens had seen his brother cut
off by the sudden and capricious fears of the tyrant ;
and his repugnance to enter on the same dangerous
public career, in pursuit of honours which he despised,
if it had assumed the lofty language of philosophy,
might have commanded the admiration of his contempo-
raries, but, connected with a new religion, of which the
sublimer notions and principles were altogether incom-
prehensible, only exposed him to their more con-
temptuous scorn. Neither in his case was it the peril
apprehended from the progress of the religion, but the
dangerous position of the individuals professing the
religion, so near to the throne, which was fatal to
Clemens and Domitilla. It was the pretext, not the
cause, of their punishment ; and the first act of the
reign of Nerva was the reversal of these sentences by
the authority of the senate. The exiles were recalled,

Chap. IV. DEATH OF ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE.

and an act, prohibiting all accosations of Jewish
manners,'^ seems to have been intended as a peace
offering for the execution of Clemens, and for the
especial protection of the Christians.

But Christian history cannot pass over another in-
cident assigned to the reign of Domitian, since Legencbof
it relates to the death of St. John the Apostle. ^X^^°*
Christian gratitude and reverence soon began ^^^ *°***
to be discontented with the silence of the au- <»«"^e8.
thentic writings as to the fate of the twelve chosen com-
panions of Christ. It began first with some modest respect
for truth, but soon with bold defiance of probability, to
brighten* their obscure course, till each might be traced
by the blaze of miracle into remote regions of the
world, where it is clear that, if they had penetrated, no
record of their existence was likely to survive." These
religious invaders, according to the later Christian
romance, made a regular partition of the world, and
assigned to each the conquest of his particular province.
Thrace, Scythia, Spain, Britain, Ethiopia, the extreme
parts of Africa, India, the name of which mysterious
region was sometimes assigned to the southern coast of
"Arabia, had each its Apostle, whose spiritual triumphs
and cruel martyrdom were vividly pourtrayed and
gradually amplified by the fertile invention of the
Greek and Syrian historians of the early Death ©f si.
Church. Even the history of St. John, whose "^^^
later days were chiefly passed in the populous and
commercial city of Ephesus, has not escaped. Yet
legend has delighted in harmonising its tone with the
character of the beloved disciple drawn in the Gospel,

Dion CasBiiu^ Izviii. 1.
Euaeb. Eoc. Hist. iii. 1.

The

tradition is here in its simpler aD4
clearljr more genuine form.

CONSTITUTION OF CHKISTIAN CHURCHES. Book II.

and illustrated in his own writings. Even if purely
imaginary, these stories show that another spirit was
working in the mind of man. While, then, we would
reject, as the offspring of a more angry and controversial
age, the story of his fljong in fear and indignation from
a bath polluted by the presence of the heretic Cerinthus,
we might admit the pleasing tradition that when he
grew so feeble from age as to be unable to utter any
long discourse, his last, if we may borrow the expression,
his cycnean voice, dwelt on a brief exhortation to
mutual charity.® His whole sermon consisted in these
words : " Little children, love one another ; " and when
his audience remonstrated at the wearisome iteration of
the same words, he declared that in these words was
contained the whole substance of Christianity. The
deportation of the Apostle to the wild island of Patmos,
where general tradition places his writing the Book of
Revelations, is by no means improbable, if we suppose
it to have taken place under the authority of the pro-
consul of Asia, on account of some local disturbance in
Ephesus, and, notwithstanding the authority of Ter-
tullian, reject the trial before Domitian at Rome, and
the plunging him into a cauldron of boiling oil, from
which he came forth unhurt.^ Such are the few vestiges
of the progress of Christianity which we dimly trace in
the obscurity of the latter part of the first century.
coiiBtitttUon During this period, however, took place the
Churches, rcgular formation of the young Christian
republics, in all the more considerable cities of the
Empire. The primitive constitution of these churches

' Euseb. Ecc. Hist. iii. 12.

P '* Ubi (in Roni&) Apostolus Jo-
hannes, postea quam in oleum igneum
demenus, nihil passus est.** Moelieim

suspects that in this passage of Ter-
tuUian a metaphor has been converted
into a fact. De Reb. Christ, ante Con<
tttant. p. 111.

Chap. IV. ORIGIN OF ORDERS IN THE CHURCH. 15

is a subject which it is impossible to decline ; though
few points in Christian history rest on more dubious
and imperfect, in general or inferential evidence, yet
few have been contested with greater pertinacity.

The whole of Christendom, when it emerges out of
the obscurity of the first century, appears unifonnly
governed by certain superiors of each community, called
bishops. But the origin and extent of this superiority,
and the manner in which the bisliop assumed a distinct
authority from the inferior presbyters, is one of those
diflScult questions of Christian history which, since the
Keformation, has been more and more darkened by
those fatal enemies to candid and dispassionate inquiry.
Prejudice and Interest. The earliest Christian com-
munities appear to have been ruled and represented, in
the absence of the Apostle who was their first founder,
by their elders, who are likewise called bishops, or
ovwseers of the churches. These presbyter bishops
and the deacons are the only two orders which we
discover at first in the Church of Ephesus, at Philippi,
and perhaps in Crete.^ On the other hand, at a very
early period, one religious functionary, superior to the
rest, appears to have been almost universally recognised ;
at least, it is dif&cult to understand how, in so short a
time, among communities, though not entirely discon-
nected, yet scattered over the whole Eoman world, a
scheme of government popular, or rather aristocratical,
should become, even in form, monarchical. Neither
the times nor the circumstances of the infant Church,
nor the primitive spirit of the religion, appear to favour
a general, a systematic, and an unauthorised usurpation
of power on the part of the supreme religious func-

« Acts xz. 17, oompai-ed with 28. Philip, i. 1. Titui i. 5-7.

THE ANGEL, OE BISHOP.

Book II.

tionary/ Yet the change has already taken place within
the Apostolic times. The Church of Ephesiis, which in
the Acts is represented by its elders, in the Kevela-
tions' is represented by its angel or bishop. We may,
perhaps, arrive at a more clear and intelligible view of
this subject, by endeavouring to trace the origin and
development of the Christian communities.

The Christian Church was almost universally formed
by a secession from a Jewish synagogue. Some syna-
gogues may have become altogether Christian ; but, in

» The most plausible way of ac-
counting for this total i-evolution is
by supposing that the affairs of each
community or chui-ch were governed
by a college of presbyters, one of whom
necessarily presided at their meetings,
and gradually assumed and was re-
cognised as possessing a superior func-
tion and authority. In expressing my
dissatisfaction with a theory adopted
by Mosheim, by Gibbon, by Neander,
and by most of the leai*ned foreign
writers, I have scrutinised my own
motives with the utmost suspicion,
and can only declare that I believe
myself actuated only by the calm and
candid desire of truth. But the mii-
versal and almost simultaneous eleva-
tion of the bishop, under such drcum-
stanoes, in every part of the world
(though it must be admitted that he
was for a long time assisted by the
presbyters in the dischai^e of his
office), appears to me an insupei-able
objection to this hypothesis. The
later the date which is assumed for
the general establishment of the epis-
copal authority, the less likely was it
to be general. It was only during
ihe fii'st period of undivided unity that

such an usurpation (for such it must
have been accoixling to this theory)
could have been universally acquiesced
in without resistance. All presbyters,
according to this view, with one con-
sent, gave up or allowed themselves to
be deprived of their co-ordinate and
coequal dignity. The further we ad-
vance in Christian history, the more
we discover the common motives of
human nature at work. In this case
alone aie we to suppose them with-
out influence? Yet we discover no
struggle, no resistance, no controversy.
The uninterrupted line of bishops is
ti*aced by the ecclesiastical histoiian
up to the Apostles; but no murmur
of remonsti'ance against this usurpa-
tion has transpired: no schism, no
breach of Christian unity, followed
upon this momentous iDnovation. Kor
does any such change appear to have
taken place in the office of eldor in the
Jewish communities: the Raobinicai
teachers txxk the foim of a r^ular
hieraix^y; their patriarch grew up
into a kind of pope, but episocpal
authority never took root in the syna*
gogue.
' Chap it 1.

Ohap. IV. CHURCHES FORMED FROM SYNAGOGUES. 1 7

general, a certain part of an existing community of Jews
and Gentile proselytes incorporated them- christian
selves into a new society, and met for the pur- fo^^m,
pose of divine worship in some private chamber JJ^fotthe
— sometimes, perhaps, in a public place, as synagogue.
rather later, during the times of persecution, in a
cemetery. The first of these may have answered to a
synagogue, the latter to an unwalled proseucha. The
model of the ancient community would naturally, as
far as circumstances might admit, become that of the
^ new. But in their primary constitution there was an
I essential point of diflference. The Jews were a civil as
well as a religious, the Christians exclusively a religious,
community. Everywhere that the Jews were settled,
they were the colony of a nation, they were held toge-
ther by a kindred, as well as by a religious, bond of
union. The governors, therefore, of the community,
the Zakinim or Elders, the Pamasim or Pastors (if this
be an early appellation), were by no means necessarily
religious functionaries.* Another kind of influence
besides that of piety — ^age, worldly experience, wealth —
would obtain the chief and ruling power in the society.
The government of these Elders neither rested on, nor
required, spiritual authority. Their grave example
would enforce the general 'observance, their censure
repress any flagrant departure from the Law : they might
be consulted on any difficult or unusual point of prac-
tice ; but it was not till the new Eabbinical priesthood
was established, and the Mischna and the Talmud uni-

* In some places, the Jews seem to
nave been ruled by an Ethnarch,
reot^nised by the Roman civil autho-
rities. Strabo, quoted by Joeephus.
Antiq. zir. 12, speaks of the Ethnarch

in Alexandria. Josephus mentions
their Archon or chief, in Antioch.
The more common constitution seems
to have been the y^pcuoi and tvvwrol
— the elders or authorities.

VOL. IL O

18 DIFFERENCE OF CHUKCH AND SYNAGOGtIE. Book II. \

versally received as the national code, that the foreign
-Jews fell under what may be considered sacerdotal
dominion. At this time, the synagogue itself was only
^supplementary to the great national religious ceremonial
KKwniisi of the Temple. The Levitical race claimed
wjwmTuio ^^ peculiar sanctity, at least it discharged no
ihf'i^li^ priestly ofBce, beyond the bounds of the Holy
5"«""- Land, or the precincts of the Temple ; nor was

an anthorised ioBtmctor of the people necessary to the
service of the synagogue. It was an assembly for the
purpose of worship, not of teaching. The instructor of
the people, the copy of the Law, lay in the ark at the
east end of the building ; it was brongbt forth with
solemn reverence, and an appointed portion read during
the service. But oral instruction, though it might
sometimes be, and no doubt frequently was, delivered, was
no fiecessaiy part of the ceremonial. Any one, it shoald
seem, who considered himself qualified, and obtained
permission from the archisynag<^, the governors of the
sommunity, who exercised a sort of presidence in the
synagogue, might address the assembly. It was in this
character that the Christian Apostle usually began to
announce bis religion. But neither the chazan, or
angel" of the synagogue (which was a purely minis-
terial, comparatively a servde, office), nor the heads of
the assembly, possessed any peculiar privilege, or were
endowed with any official function as teacbere * of the
people. Many of the more remote synagogues can

■ Vitringa labour* lo prove tie
point, tJiat the chief of the s/nagngoe
n iilf.ce Dl' thiii kind, but in

my opiaioa without bhccsss. It ip-
peaiB to have beeo a rsgumr part of
the EsHDian seiTice, a dittioctJon
which Vitringa hai neglected lo ob-
seire. De Syn. Vet. lib, iii. c. f "

Chap. IV. MODEL OF THE EAELY CHUECH. 19

rarely have been honoured by the presence of the
" Wise Men," aa they were afterwards called — thf
lawyers of this period. Tlie Jewish religion was, at this
time, entirely ceremonial ; it did not necessarily demand
exposition ; its form was moolded into the habits of the
people ; and till disturbed by the invasion of Christi-
anity, or among very flonriBhing communities, where it
assumed a more intellectual tone, and extended itself
by the proselytism of the Gentiles, it was content to
rest in that form,^ In the great days of Jewish in-
tellectual activity, the adjacent Law-Bchool, usually
inseparable from the synagogue, might rather be con-
sidered the place of religious instruction. This was a
kind of chapter-house or court of ecclesiastical, with the
Jews identical with their national, law. Here knotty
points were publicly debated ; and " the Wise," or the
more dietinguislied of the lawyers or interpreters of the
Law, aa the Rabbinical hierarchy of a later period, esta-
blished their character for sagacious discemment of the
meaning and intimate acquaintance with the whole
body of the Law.

Thus, then, the model upon which the Church miglit
be expected to form itself, may be called purely aristo-
eratical. The process by which it passed into tlte
monarchical form, however limited the supreme power
of the individual, may be ti^aced to the existence of a
monarchical principle anterior to their religious oli-
garchy, and which distinguished the Christian Church
in its first origin from the Jewish synagogue. The

we biDw Ironi

INJDIVIDUAL HEADSHIP OF CHURCH.

BookB.

Christians from the first were a purely religious com-
munity; this was their primary bond of union; they
had no national law which held them together as a
separate people. Their civil union was a subordinate
effect, arising out of their incorporation as a spiritual
body. The submission of their temporal concerns to the
adjudication of their own community was a consequence
of their respect for the superior justice and wisdom
which sprung from their religious principles, and an
aversion from the litigious spirit engendered by the
complicated system of Boman jurisprudence." In their
Christian Origin they were almost universally a commu-
SSlSronnd ^*y> foHued, as it were, round an individual.
an individual, rjij^^ Apostlc, or primitive teacher, was in-
stalled at once in the oflBce of chief religious functionary ;
and the chief religious functioneuy is the natural head
of a purely religious community. Oral instruction, as
it was the first, so it must have continued to be the
living, conservative, and expansive principle of the
community.* It was, anterior to the existence of any
book, the inspired record and supreme authority of the
laith. As long as this teacher remained in the city, or
as often as he returned, he would be recognised as the

' The Apostle enjoined this secession
ftom the oixlinary courts of justice.
1 Cor. vi. 1-8.

* For some time, indeed, as in the
Jewish synagogue, what was called
the gift of prophecy seems to have
been more general ; any individual
who professed to speak under the
direct impulse of the Holy Spirit was
heard with att^tive reverence. But
it may be questioned whether this,
and the display of the other x<H>^^fMra
:recounted by the Apostle, 1 Cor. zii. |

4-10, were more than subsidiary to
the r^ular and systematic teaching
of the apostolic founder of the com-
munity. The question is not whether
each member was not at liberty to
contribute, by any faculty which had
been bestowed on him by God, to the
general edification ; but whether, above
and anterior to all this, there was not
some recognised parent of each church,
who was treated with paternal defer*
ence, and exercised, when present
paternal authority.

Chap. IV.

THE SENATE OF ELDERS.

legitimate head of the society. But not only the
Apostle, in general the primitive teacher likewise, was
a missionary, travelling incessantly into distant regions
for the general dissemination of Christianity, rather
than residing in one spot to organise a local commu-
nity.** In his absence, the government, and even the
instruction of the community devolved upon the senate
of Elders, who were likewise overseers, iiriaKOTrot (no
doubt the name was used interchangeably for some
time) ; ^ yet there was still a recognised supremacy in the
foimder of the church.*^ The wider, however, the dis-
semination of Christianity, the more rare, and at longer
intervals, the presence of the Apostle. An appeal to
his authority, by letter, became more precarious and
interrupted; while, at the same time, in many com-
munities, the necessity for his interposition became
more frequent and manifest ; ® and in the common order

^ Yet we have an account of a resi-
dence even of St. Paul of eighteen
months at Corinth, of two years at
£phesae,and he was two years during
his first imprisonment at Rome. Acts
xviii. 11; ziz. 10; zxviii. 30.

c I have now read with cai*e the
best and direst book on this subject,
Kothe, Anfange derChristlicher Eirche.
Though my view of the original mo-
narchical principle is stronger than
Rothe*s, I see no reason to retract or
modify my statement. — (1863.)

Botha's argument, pp. 227'238,
against what are called Lay Elders
seems to me conclusiye.

' St. Paul considered himself in-
vested with the superintendence of all
the churches whidi he had planted.
2 Cor. xi. 28.

* St. Jerome, quoted by Hooker
(Eccles, Polity, b. vii. vol. iii. p. 130),
assigns the origin of episcopacy to the
dissensions in the Church, which re-
quired a stronger coercive authority,
"Till through instinct of the devil,
there grew ir the chuich factions, ami
among the people it began to be pro-
fessed, I am of Paul, I of ApoUos, and
I of Cephas, churches were governed
by the common advice of presbyters :
but when every one began to reckon
those whom he had baptized his own,
and not Christ's, it was decreed m the
whole world that one chosen out of
the presbyters should be placed above
the rest, to whom all care of the
church should belong, and so all seeds
of schism be removed."

The government of the churrh

22 AUTHORITY OF THE BISHOP. Book II.

of nature, even independent of the danger of petsecfu-

tion, the primitiye founder, the legitimate head of the
ccimmunity, would vacate his place by death. That
tlie Apostle should appoint some distinguished indi-
vidual as the delegate, the representative, the successor,
to his authority, us primary instructor of the com-
munity ; invest him in an episcopacy or overseerahip,
superior to that of the co-ordinate body of Elders, is, in
itself, by no means improbable; it harmonises with the
[leriod in which we discover, in the Sacred Writings,
this change in the form of tlie permanent government
of the different bodies ; accounts most easily for the
general submission to the authority of one religious
chief magistrate, so unsatisfactorily explained by the
accidental pre-eminence of the president of a college of
coequal presbyters ; and is confirmed by general tradi-
tion, which has ever, in Btrict uniaon with every other
part of Christian history, preserved the names of many
successors of the Apostles, the first bishops in most of
the larger cities in which Christianity was first esta-
blished.

But the authority of the bishop was that of influence,
Ai.thoritjof rather than of power. After the first nomina-
ine wniiop. jj^jjj ijy ^j^g Apastle (if such nomination, as we
suppose, generally took place), his successor was elective
by that kind of acclamation which raised at once the
individtial most eminent for his piety and virtue to the
post, which was that of danger, as well as of distinction.
For a long period, the sufFmges of the community
ratified the appointment. Episcopal government waa

ecems to hare been conidilereil e mb- after that, mincles. the gifts of heal-
gMinste function. "Ajid God hntta ' ing, helps, gocemmeitts, diTeniti« of
eet wime i]i the church, fiist epostlra, | tongncs." 1 Cor. iil. 28.
socoiidly prophets, thirdly l*siher» : :

THE PRESBYTERS.

tlius, as long as Clmatianity remained unleavened by
worldly passions and interests, essentially popular.
The principle of subordination was inseparable from the
humility of the first converta Eights are never clearly
defined till they are contested ; nor is authority hmited
so long as it rests upon general reverence. When, on
the one side, aggression, on the other, jealousy and
mistrust, begin, theu it must be fenced by usage and
defined by law. Thus while I am inclined to consider
the succession of bishops from the Apostolic times to be
undeniable, the nature and extent of the authority which
they derived from the Apostles are altogether uncertain.
The ordination or consecration, whatever it might be, to
that office, of itself conveyed neither inspiration nor the
power of working miracles, which, with the direct com-
mission from the Lord himself, distinguished and set
apart the primary Apoatlea from the reat of mankind.

^m It was only in a very limited and imperfect sense that

^b they could, even in the sees founded by the Apostles,

^H be called the successors of the Apostles.

^^ The presbyters were, in their origin, the ruling powers
of the young communities ; but in a society founded
solely on a religious basis, religious qualifications would
be almost exclusively considered. In the absence, there-
fore, of the primary teacher, they would assume that
office likewise. In this they would differ from ^^ prab,.
the Jewish elders. As the most eminent in "'*■
I piety and Christian attainments, they would be advanced
f by, or at least with, the general consent, to their dig-
[ niEied station. The same piety and attainments would
[ designate them as best qualified to keep up and to
[■ extend the general system of instruction. They would
I te the regular and perpetual expositors of the Christiac

OFFICE OF THE DEACONS.

Book II.

law ' — ^the reciters of the life, the doctrines, the death,
the resurrection of Christ ; till the Gospels were written,
and generally received, they would be the living Evan-
gelists, the oral Scriptures, the spoken Gospel. They
would not merely regulate and lead the devotions,
administer the rites of baptism and the Lord's Supper,
but repeat again and again, for the further confirma-
tion of the believers and the conversion of Jews and
Heathens, the facts and the tenets of the new religion.
The government, in fact, in communities boimd together
by Christian brotherhood (such as we may suppose to
have been the first Christian churches, which were
happily undistracted by the disputes arising out of the
Judaical controversy), would be an easy oflSce, and
entirely subordinate to that of instruction and edifica-
tion. The communities would be almost self-governed
by the principle of Christian love which first drew them
together. The deacons were from the first an inferior
order, and exercised a purely ministerial office — dis-
tributing the common fund to the poorer members,
though the administration of the pecuniary concerns of
the Church soon became of such importance as to require
the superintendence of the higher rulers. The other
functions of the deacons were altogether of a subordinate
character.

Such would be the ordinary development of a Chris-

' Here, likewise, the possessors of
the x"^^^!"*^"^ would be the casual
and subsidiary instructors, or rather
the gifted promoters of Christian pietj, *
each in his separate sphere, according
to his distinctive grace. But besides
these, even if thef were found in all
churclies, which Ib bj no means clear,

r^ular and systematic teachers would
be necessary to a religion which pro-
bably could only subsist, ceiiainly
could not propagate itself with activity
or to any great extent, eicept by this con-
stant exposition of its principles in the
public assembly, as well as in the more
private communications of individual*

Chap rv. PKCULlAErrYOF THECOEINTHIAN CHUSCH. 25

tian community, in tlie first case, monarchical, as founded
by an individual Apostie or recognised teacher of Chris-
tianity; subsequently, in the absence of that teacher,
aristocrat ical, under a senate formed according to Jewish
nsage, though not precisely on Jewish principles ; until,
the place of the Apostle being supplied by a bishop, in
a certain sense his representative or successor, it would
revert to a monarchical form, limited rather by the
religion itself than by any appointed controlling power.
As long as the same holy spirit of love and charity
actuated the whole body, the result would be an harmony,
not from the counteracting powers of opposing forces,
but from the consentient will of the general body ; and
the will of the government would be the expression of
the universal popular sentiment.* Where, however,
from the first, the Christian community was formed of
conflicting parties, or where conflicting prineiples began
to operate immediately upon the foundation of the
society, no single person would be generally recognised as
the authoritative teacher, and the assumption and recog-
nition of the episcopate would be more slow ; or, indeed,
would not take place at aU till the final triumph of one of
the conflicting parties. These communities retained, of
necessity, the republican form. Such was the cburch of
state of the Corinthian Church, which was irom eicepHon.
its origin, or almost immediately after, divided into

' Such i« the Ibeory of episcopnl
gDvenunflDt in a pltasDg pRtsaiifi
in tbe Epistla of Ignaiius: 'Ofl*.'
■rpirn 6fu» ffui-rpixfi" if tow (t.-
ffmdroi; Tfil^J!. S**? tol roitne. Tj
yifi A^utfAfiarrTov dfiSiv rptrrQvripvoVj
TOO BtSaiiw* dimii ovrlipntiaTii t^

hnVlciwittli XOpHnlKlSttpfll^ToDTO

A7JwTT 'Xritrovz Xpftfroi J^Bcthi koI

ailKpoiym ivrti in ifiovoiif, XP"I"^
BfoZ Xa&iinti ir trintri, iSfTt iv
^vj fii^ ill 'IijrToC XplOToD T("
irnrpl, k.t.\. Ad £phes. p. 12, alit.
Cotfl. I speak of ihfse epiitka in ■

THE FIRST HIERARCHY.

Book XL

three separate parties, with a leading teacher or teachers
at the head of each.^ The Petrine, or the ultra-Judaic,
the Apolline, or more moderate Jewish party, contested
the supremacy with the followers of St PauL Different
individuals possessed, exercised, and even abused dif-
ferent gifts. The authority of Paul himself appears
clearly, by his elaborate vindication of his Apostolic
office, by no means to have been generally recognised.
No Apostolic head, therefore, would assume an uncon-
tested supremacy, nor would the parties coalesce in the
choice of a superior. Corinth, probably, was the last
community which settled down under tiie general epi-
scopal constitution.

The manner and the period of the separation of a
distinct class, a hierarchy, from the general body of
the community, and the progress of the great division
between the clergy and the laity,* are equally obscure
with the primitive constitution of the Church. Like the
Judaism of the provinces, Christianity had no sacerdotal
order. But as the more eminent members of the com-
mimity were admitted to take the lead, on account of
their acknowledged religious superiority, from their
zeal, their talents, their gifts, their sanctity, the general

^ I was led to conjecture that the
distracted state of the Church of
Corinth might induce the Apostles
to establish elsewhere a more firm
and vigorous authority, before I re-
membered the passage of St. Jerome
quoted aboye, which coincides with
this view. Corinth has been generally
takbu as the model of the early Chiis-
tian constitution ; I suspect that it
was rather an anomaly.

I Already the XaUot are a distinct

class in the Epistle of Clemens to the
Corinthians (c zl. p. 170, edit. Coteler).
This epistle is confidently appealed to
by both parties in the controversy
about church'goveniment, and alto-
gether satisfies neither, it is clear,
however, from the tone of the whole
epistle, that the Churdi at Corinth
was anything rather than a model ot
church-government: it had been rent
with schisms ever since the <!'&ys oi
the Apostle.

Chap. IV. ORDINATION OP BISHOPS* 27

rererence would, of itself speedily set them apart as of
a higher order ; they would form the purest aristocracy,
and soon be divided by a distinct line of demarcation
from the rest of the community. Whatever the ordina-
tion might be which designated them for their peculiar
function, whatever power or authority might be commu-
nicated by the " imposition of hands," it would add little
to the reverence with which they were invested. It was
at first the Christian who sanctified the ftmction, after-
wards the function sanctified the man. But the civil
,and religious concerns of the Church were so moulded
up together, or rather, the temporal were so absorbed
by the spiritual, that not merely the teacher, but the
governor — not merely the bishop, properly so called,
but the presbyter, in his character of ruler as well as
of teacher — ^shared in the same peculiar veneration. The
bishop would be necessarily mingled up in the few
secular affairs of the community, the governors bear
their part in the religious ceremoniaL In this respect,
again, they differed from their prototypes, or elders of
the synagogue. Their office was, of necessity, more
religious. The admission of members into the Jewish
synagogue, except in the case of proselytes of righteous-
ness, was a matter of hereditary right : circumcision was
a domestic, not a public ceremony. But baptism, or the
initiation into the Christian community, was a solemn
ceremonial, requiring previous examination and proba-
tion. The governing power would possess and exercise
the authority to admit into the community. They would
perform, or at all events superintend, the initiatory rite
of baptism. The other distinctive rite of Christianity,
the celebration of the Lord's Supper, wotdd require a
more active interference and co-operation on the part

BISHOPS PlltST CALLED POKTIFFh. Boo* U.

of tiioee who preaideil over the comimmity. To this
there was nothing analogous in the office of the Jewiah
elder. Order would require that this ceremony should
be admiiiiatered by certain fiinctionariea. If the bishop
presided, after his appoiatment, both at the Lord'
Supper itself and in the agape or feast which followed
it, the eldere would assist, not merely in maintaining
order, but would officiate throughout the ceremony. In
proportion to the reverence for the consecrated elements
would be the respect towards those under whose especial
prayers, and in whose hands, probably from the earliest,
period, they were sanctified for the use of the assembly.
The presbyters would likewise possess the chief voice, a
practical initiative, in the nomination of the bishop.
From all these different functions the presbyters, and
at length the deacons, became, as well as the bishop, a
sacred order. But the exclusive or sacerdotal principle
once admitted in a religious community, its own corpo-
rate spirit, and the public reverence, would cause it to
recede further and further, and draw the line of demar-
cation with greater rigour and depth. They would
more and more insulate themselves from the common-
alty of the Christian republic ; they would become a
senate, a patrician, or a privileged order ; and this se-
cession into their jieculiar sphere would be greatly
facilitated by the regular gradations of the faithful and
the catechumen, the perfect and the imperfect, the
initiate and half-iuitiate, Christians. The greater the
variety, the more strict the subordination of ranks.

Thus the bishop gradually assumed the title of pontiff;
the preshytere became a sacerdotal order. From the
Old Testament, and even from paganism, the Christians,
at first as ennobling metaphors, adopted their sacred

cbap. it. the peiestlt casix. ^

f^peDatkms. InaeDsibly the me«aiing of th^so sigiu«
ficant titles worked into the Christian system. Thoy
asBomed, as it were, a privilege of nearer aj^mxaoh to
the Deity ; and a priestly caste grew rapidly up in a
religion which, in its primary institution, acknowledged
only one mediator between earth and heaven, I
shidl subsequently trace the growth of the si^cordotal
principle, and the universal estabUshment of the
hierarchy.

80 CHRISTUIdTT AND OBIENTALISM. Book O.

CHAPTER V.

Christianity and Orientalism.

Christianity had not only to contend with the Judaism
Oriental of its nativo region, and the Paganism of the
reugiona* ^^estem world, but likewise with the Asiatic
religions, which, in the Eastern provinces of the Boman
empire, maintained their ground, or mingled themselves
with the Grecian Polytheism, and had even penetrated
into Palestine. In the silence of its authentic records,
the direct progress of Christianity in the East can neither
be accurately traced nor clearly estimated ; its conflict
with Orientalism is chiefly visible in the influence of
the latter upon the general system of Christianity, and
in the tenets of the different sects which, from Simon
Magus to Manes, attempted to reconcile the doctrines
of the Gospel with the theogonical system of Asia. In
the West Christianity advanced with gradual, but un-
obstructed and unreceding, progress, till, first the Boman
Empire, and successively the barbarous nations who
occupied or subdued the rest of Europe, were brought
within its pale. No new religion arose to dispute its
supremacy ; and the feeble attempt of Julian to raise
up a Platonic Paganism in opposition to the religion of
Christ must have failed, even if it had not been cut
short in its first growth by the death of its imperial
patron. In Asia, the progress of Christianity was sud-
denly arrested by the revival of Zoroastrianism, after
the restoration of the Persian kingdom upon the ruiiw

Chap, V.

INFLUENCE OF ORIENTALISM,

of the Parthian monarchy ; and, at a later period, the
vestiges of its former success were almost entirely obli-
terated by the desolating and all-absorbing conquests of
Mohammedanism. The Armenian was the only national
church which resisted alike the persecuting edicts of the
Sassanian fire-worshippers, and, submitting to the yoke
of the Mohammedan conqueror, rejected the worship of
the Prophet. The other scattered communities of Chris-
tians, disseminated through various parts of Asia, on the
coast of Malabar, perhaps in China, have no satisfactory
evidence of Apostolic or even of very early date : they
are so deeply impregnated with the Nestorian system of
Christianity, which, during the interval between the
decline of the reformed Zoroastrianism and the first
outburst of Islamism, spread to a great extent throughout
every part of the Eastern continent,* that there is every
reason to suppose them Nestorian in their origin.'' Tlie
contest, then, of Christianity with the Eastern reUgions
must be traced in their reaction upon the new religion
of the West By their treacherous alliance, they pro-
bably operated more extensively to the detriment of the
Evangelic religion than Paganism by its open opposition.
Asiatic influences have worked more completely into
the body and essence of Christianity than any other
£[Nreign elements; and it is by no means improbable
that tenets, which had their origin in India, have for
many centuries predominated in, or materially afiected
the Christianity of the whole Western world.
Palestine was admirably situated to become the centre

* There is an extremely good view
of the origin and history of the Chris-
tian oommmiitieB m India, in BoUen,
Das alte Indien.

^ Compare the new edition of Gib-
hon and the editor's note on the
Nestorian ChristiaDs with the famon*
inscription of Siganfo, Tiii. 347.

82 SITUATION OF PALESTINB — JUDAISM. 3ook It

and point of emanation for an nniversal religion. On the
sitnatkmof confincs of Asla and Europe, yet sufficiently
fltvoorawe socluded from both to be out of the way of
religion. the constant flux and reflux of a foreign popu-
lation, it commanded Egypt, and, through Egypt, asso-
ciated Africa with the general moral kingdom. But it
was not merely calculated for the birthplace of an uni-
versal faith by its local position. Judaism, as
it were, in its character (putting out of sight,
for an instant, its divine origin) stood between the
religions of the East and the West. It was the con^
necting link between the European and the Asiatic
mind. In speculative sublimity, the doctrine of the
Divine Unity soared to an equal height with the vast
and imaginative cosmogonies of the East, while in its
practical tendencies it approximated to the active and
rational genius of the West.

The religions of Asia appear, if not of regularly
affiliated descent, yet to possess a common and generic
character, modified, indeed, by the genius of the difierent
people, and, perhaps, by the prevailing tone of mind in
the authors and founders of new doctrines. From the
banks of the Ganges, probably from the shores of the
Yellow Sea and the coasts of further India, to the Phoe-
nician borders of the Mediterranean and the undefined
limits of Phrygia in Asia Minor, there was that con-
nexion and similitude, that community of certain
elementary principles, that tendency to certain combi-
nations of physical and moral ideas, which may be
expressed by the term Orientalism.® The speculative

* Compare Windischman, Philo-
sophie in fortgang der Welt Geschichte.

I may venture to say. a disciple, of
F. Sohl^, and beJonga to the high

Windischmou was a friend, I belieye i Roman Catholic school in Germany.

CuAP. V. C^AiiACTEE OP OfiliasiALlSM. 33

theology of the higher, the sacerdotal, order, which
in some countries left the superatitions of General

ch&r&icti6i* of

the vulgar undisturbed, or allowed their own oneutausm.
more sublime conceptions to be lowered to their rude
and limited material notions, aspired to the primal
Source of Being. The Emanation system of India,
according to which the whole worlds flowed from the
Godhead and were finally to be reabsorbed into it;
the Pantheism into which this degenerated, and which
made the collective Universe itself the Deity; the
Dualism of Persia, according to which the antagonist
powers were created by, or proceeded from, the One
Supreme and Uncreated ; the Chaldean doctrine of
divine Energies or Intelligences, the prototypes of the
Cabalistic Sephiroth, and of the later Gnostic -Sons, the
same, no doubt, under different names, with the -Son
and Protogenes, the Genos and Genoa, with their
regularly-coupled descendants in the Phoenician cos-
mogony of Sanchoniathon ; and finally, the primitive
and simpler worship of Egjrpt; all these are either
branches of one common stock, or expressions of the
same state of the human mind, working with kindred
activity on the same visible phenomena of nature, and
with the same object.

The Asiatic mind impersonated, though it did not,
with the Greek, humanise everything. Light and Dark-
ness, Good and Evil, the Creative and Destructive
energy of nature, the active and passive Powers of
generation, moral Perfection and Wisdom, Beason and
Speech, even Agriculture and the Pastoral life, eoch
was a distinct and intelligent being ; they wedded each

His book, which is fall of abstruse
thought and learnings developes the

theory of a primitiTe txmUtion iliSoMd
through the East

VOL. II. D

34 DNIVEHSAL PRIMAItY TEISCIPLE. Book IL

other according to their apparent correapondences ; they
begat progeny according to the natural affiliation oi
eonsequence of ideas.

One great elementary principle pervaded the whole
religious systems of the East, the connexiou of mor^
Eimijot with phygiced ideas, the inliereat purity, the
Miiutnit diviniti/, of mind or spirit, the inalienable evU
Mum. of its oMagonist, matter. Whether Matter
roexisted with the First Great Canse ; whether it was
created by his power, but from its innate malignity
became insubordinate to his will ; whether it was ex-
traneous to bis existence, necessarily subsisting, though
without form, till its inert and shapeless mass was
worked upon by the Deity himself, or by his primal
Power or Emanation, the Demiurge or Creator of the
existing worlds : on these points the different national
creeds were endlessly diversified. But in its varioua
forms, die principle itself was the nniversal doctrine of
the Eastern world; it was developed in their loftiest
philosophy (in fact, their higher philosophy and their
speculative religion were the same thing) ; it gave a
kind of colouring even to their vulgar superstition, and
operated, in many cases almost to an incredible extent,
on their social and political system.

This great primal tenet is alike the elementary prin-
rueiinixT- ciple of the higher Brahminism and the more
pnncit'icl^ moral Buddhism of India and the remoter
East. The theory of the division of castes supposes that
a larger portion of the pure miud of the Deity is infused
into the sacerdotal and superior orders ; they are nearer
the Deity, and with more immediate hope of being
reabsorbed into the divine essence ; while the lower
classes ai^e more inextricably immersed in the grosser
matter of the world, their feeble portion of the essential

CUAP. V,

SOURCE OF ASCETICISM.

spirit of the Divinity contracted and lost in the pre-
dominant mass of corruption and malignity.^ The
Buddhist, substituting a moral for a hereditary ap-
proximation to the pure and elementary mind, rests,
nevertheless, on the same primal theory, and carries the
notion of the abstraction of the spiritual part from the
foul and corporeal being to an equal, if not a greater,
height of contemplative mysticism.® Hence the sanctity
of fire among the Persians ; ' that element which is most
subtle and defaecated from all material corruption ; it is
therefore the representative of pure elementary mind,
of Deity itselfc^ It exists independent of the material
forms in which it abides, the sun and the heavenly
bodies. To infect this holy element with any excretion
or emanation from the material form of man ; to con-
taminate it with the putrescent effluvia of the dead and
soulless corpse, was the height of guilt and impiety.

This one simple principle is the parent of that Asce-
ticism which maintained its authority among source of
all the older religions of the remoter East, ^«^^<^^
forced its way at a very early period into Christianity,
where, for some centuries, it exercised a predominant
influence, and subdued even the active and warlike

' The self-existing power declared
the purest part of him to be the
mnatii. Since the Brahmen sprang
from the most excellent part; since
he was the first-bom, and since he
possesses the Veda, he is by right the
chief of the whole creation. Jones's
Menu, i. 92, 93.

* See the tracts of Mahony, Join-
rille, Hodgson, and Wilson, in the
JUiatio Besearches; Schmidt^ Ga»-

chichte der Ost Mongolen ; Bergman,
Nomadische Streifereyen, &c.

' Hyde, De Relig. Persainim, p. 13,
et alibi. Kleuker, Anhang znm
2^dayesta, toI. i. p. 116, 117.
De Guigniaut, Religions de TAnti-
quit^ 1. ii. c. 3, p. 333.

' Elenker, Anhang sum Zendavesta^
ToL i. pt 2, p. 147. De Guigniaut,
nbi n]]inu

D 2i

i6 CELIBACY. Book tt

genius of Mohammedanism to its dreamy and ecstatic
influeni:e. On the cold table-lands of 'rbibet, in the
forests of India, among the busy populatiun of China,
on the burning shores of Siam, in Egypt and in Poles-
tine, in Christianised Europe, iu Mohammedaniaed Asia,
the worshipper of the Lama, the Faquir, the Bonze, the
Talapoin, the Easene, the Therapeutist, the Monk, and
the Dervish, have vfithdrawn from the society of man,
in order to abstract the pure mind from the dominion of
foul and corrupting matter. Under each system, tha
perfection of human nature was estrangement from the
influence of the senses, — those senses which were
slaved to the material elements of the world ; an
approximation to the essence of the Deity, by a total
secession from the affairs, the interests, the passions,
the thoughts, the common being and nature of man.
The practical operation of this elementary principle of
Eastern religion has deeply influenced the whole history
of man. But it had made no progress in Europe till
after the introduction of Christianity. The manner in
which it allied itself with, or rather incorporated itself
into, a system, to the original nature and design of
which it appears altogether foreign, will form a most
important and perhaps not uninteresting chapter in the
History of Christianity.

Celibacy was the offspring of Asceticism, but it does
^^ not appear absolutely essential to it ; whether
insulted nature reasserts its rights, and recoit
ciles to the practice that which is in apparent opposition
to the theory, or whether it revenges, as it were, this
rebellion of nature on one point, by its more violent
and succeasM invasions upon its imconquerable pro-
liensities on others. The Muni in India is accompanied

Chap. V.

EASTEBN ASCETICISM.

by his wife, who shares his solitude, and seems to offer
no impediment to his sanctity,** though in some cases it
may be that all connubial intercourse is sternly re-
nounced. In Palestine, the Essene, in his higher state
of perfection, stood in direct opposition to the spirit of
the books of Moses, on which he still looked with the
profoundest reverence, by altogether refraining from
marriage. It was perhaps in this form that Eastern
Asceticism first crept into Christianity. It assumed the
elevating and attractive character of higher personal
purity; it drew the line of demarcation more rigidly
against the loose morality of the Heathen ; it afforded
the advantage of detaching the first itinerant preachers
of Christianity more entirely from worldly interests ;
enabled them to devote their whole undistracted atten-
tion to the propagation of the Faith, and left them, as it
were, more loose from the world, ready to break the
few and slender ties which connected them with it at
the first summons to a glorious martyrdom.* But it
was not, as we shall presently observe, tiU Gnosticism
began to exercise its influence on Christianity^ that,

^ Abandoning all food eaten in
towns, and all his household utensils,
let him repair to the lonely wood,
committing the care of his wife to his
sons, or accompanied by her, if she
choose to attend him. Sir W. Jones's
Menu, vi. 3. I venture to refer to
the pathetic tale of the heimit with
his wife and son, from the Mah& BhSir
rata, in my translations from the
Sanaki'it. Compare Vishnu Puraua,
p. 295.

In the veiy curious account of the
Buddhist monks (the SofuCvaioi — the
Schamans) in Porphyi-ius de Absti-
nently, lib. It. 17, the Buddhist ascetic

abandons his wife ; and this in general
agrees with the Buddhist theory.
Female contact is unlawful to the
Buddha ascetic. See a curious in-
stance in Mr. Wilson's Hindu Theatre
— The Toycartf Act viii., in fine.

* Clement of Alexandria, however,
asseils that St. Paul was i-eally mar-
ried, but left his wife behind him,
lest siie should inteifere with his
ministry. This is his inteipretation
of 1 Cor, ix, 5.

^ TertuUian adv. Marc. i. 29. Non
tingitur apud ilium caro, nisi virgo,
nisi vidua, nisi csehbs, nisi divortio
baptismum mereatui . . . nee prsescri*

GEECIAN AND BOMAN SYSTEMS.

Book II.

emulous of its dangerous riyal, or infected with its
foreign opinions, the Church, in its general sentiment,
espoused and magnified the pre-eminent virtue of
celibacy."*

The European mind of the older world, as repre-
unknownin scuted bv the Grccks and Eomans, repelled

Grr6€06 And 'a

Rome. for a loug time, in the busy turmoil of political

development and the absorbing career of war and con-
quest, this principle of inactivity and secession from the
ordinary affairs of life. No sacerdotal caste established
this principle of superiority over the active warrior, or
even over the laborious husbandman. With the citizen
of the stirring and factious republics of Greece, the
highest virtue was of a purely political and practical
character. The whole man was public : his indivi-
duality, the sense of which was continually suggested
and fostered under the other system, was lost in the
member of the commonwealtL That which contributed
nothing to the service of the state was held in no
respect. The mind, in its abstracted flights, obtained
little honour ; it was only as it worked upon the welfare,
the amusement, or the glory of the republic, that its
dignity was estimated. The philosopher might discuss
the comparative superiority of the practical or the con-
templative life, but his loftiest contemplations were
occupied with realities, or what may be considered

bimus sed suademus sanctitatem . . .
tunc denique conjugium exerts de-
feodentes cum inimic^ accusatur spur-
citiae nomine in destructionem creatoris
qui proinde conjugium pro rei hones-
tate benedixit, incrementum generis
humani . . .

"^ Compai-e the whole argument of
the third book of the Stromata of

Clement of Alexandria. In one pas-
sage he condemns celibacy, as leading
to misanthropy, ^vyopa Sc tiras r-p
irptxpaffti Tov ydfiov ot fx^y inrtffxv
fi4yoi ro6roUf fiii Karh r^y ayiay
yvwnyf tU (iwayBpomiaif lire^phiiraVj
KoX rb ri]s kydinis otx^TCU xap*
abroh. Sti'om. iii. 9.

Ghak v. PLATO. 39

idealising those realities to a higher degree of perfec-
tion : to make good citizens was the utmost ambition of
his wisdom ; an Utopia was his heaven. The Cynic, who
in the East^ or in Europe after it became impregnated
with Eastern doctrines, would have retired into the
des^ to his solitary hermitage, in order to withdraw
himself entirely from the common interests, sentiments,
and connexions of mankind; in Greece, took up his
station in the crowded forum, or, pitching his tub in the
midst of the concourse at the public games, inveighed
against the vices and follies of mankind. Plato, if he
had followed the natural bent of his genius,
might have introduced, and indeed did intro-
duce, as much as the Grecian mind was capable of
imbibing of this theory of the opposition of mind and
matter, with its ordinary consequences. The com-
munities of his older master Pythagoras, who had pro-
bably visited the East, and drank deep of the Oriental
mysticism, approached in some respects nearer to the
contemplative character of monastic institutions. But
the active mind of the Greek predominated ; and the
followers of Pythagoras, instead of founding coenobitic
institutions, or secluding themselves in meditative soli-
tude, settled some of the flourishing republics of Magna
Grsecia. The great master, in whose steps Plato pro-
fessed to tread more closely, was so essentially prac-
tical and unimaginative, as to bind his followers down
to a less Oriental system of philosophy. While, there-
fore, in his Timaeus, Plato attempted to harmonise parts
of the cosmogonical theories of Asia with the more
humanised mythology of Greece, the work which waif
more accordant to the genius of his country, was his
Kepublic, in which all his idealism was, as it were, con-
fined to the earth. Even his religion, though of mu6b

40 PHILOSOPHY OF ROME. Book It

sublimer cast than the popular guperstition, was yet
considered chiefly in its practical operation on the
welfare of the state. It was his design to eleyate
humanity to a higher state of moral dignity ; to culti-
vate the material body as well as the immaterial soul,
to the height of perfection ; not to sever, as far as
possible, the connexion between these ill-assorted com-
panions, or to Avithdraw the purer mind from its social
and political sphere, into solitary and inactive com-
munion with the Deity.

In Kome, the general tendency of the national mind

was still more essentially public and political.

In the Eepublic, except in a few less distin-
guished men, the Laelii and the Attici, even their philo-
sophy was an intellectual recreation between the more
pressing avocations of their higher duties : it was either
to brace and mature the mind for future service to the
state, or as a solace in hours of disappointed ambition
or the haughty satiety of glory. Civil science was the
end and aim of all their philosophic meditation. Like
their ancient king, if they retired for communion with
the Egeria of philosophy, it was in order to bring forth,
on their return, more ample stores of political and legis-
lative wisdom. Under the imperial government, they
took refuge in the lofty reveries of the porch, as they
did in inordinate luxuiy, from the degradation and
enforced inactivity of servitude. They fled to the phi-
losophic retirement, iBrom the barrenness, in all high or
stirring emotions, which had smitten the Senate and the
Oomitia; still looking back with a vain but lingering
hope that the State might summon them again from
retirement without dignity, from a contemplative life,
which by no means implied an approximation to the
divine, but rather a debasement of the human nature^

Ceap. V. ORIENTALISM IN WESTEEN ASIA, 41

Some, indeed, degraded their high tone of philosophy
by still mingling in the servile politics of the day:
Seneca Hyed and died the votary and the victim of
court intrigue. The Thraseas stood aloof, not in ec-
static meditation on the primal Author of Being, but on
the departed liberties of Borne; their soul aspired no
higher than to unite itself with the ancient genius of the
Republic.

Orientalism had made considerable progress towards
the West before the appearance of Christianity, orientalism
While the popular Pharisaism of the Jews had Asia.^*
embodied some o£ the more practical tenets of Zoroas-
trianism, the doctrines of the remoter East had foimd a
welcome reception with the Essene. Yet even with
him, regular and unintermitting labour, not inert and
meditative abstraction, was the principle of the ascetic
community. It might almost seem that there subsisted
some secret and indelible congeniality, some latent con-
sanguinity, whether from kindred, common descent, or
from conquest, between the caste-divided population on
the shores of the Ganges, and the same artificial state
of society in the valley of the Nile, so as to assimilate in
80 remarkable a manner their religion.^ It is certain,
that the genuine Indian mysticism first established a
permanent western settlement in the deserts of Egypt
Its first combination seems to have been with the
Egyptian Judaism of Alexandria, and to have arisen
from the dreaming Flatonism, which in the schools of
that city had been engrafted on the Mosaic Institutes.

■ Bohlen's work, Das alte Indien,
of which the excellence in all other

collected concerning India, will be
universally acknowledged, is writtet

respects, as a condensed abstract oJ | to maintain the theoiy of the earl|
all that our own countrymen and thu | connexion of India and Egypt.
icholarB of Germany and France ba^t

42 EOYPTUN MTSTIGISM. Book IL

The Egyptian IHonks were the lineal descendants of the
Jewish Therapeutae, described by Philo.® Though the
Therapeutse, like the Essenes, were in some respectB a
productive community, yet they approached much nearer
to the contemplative and indolent fraternities of the
farther East. The arid and rocky desert around them
was too stubborn to make much return to their less
regular and less systematic cultivation ; visionary indo-
lence would grow upon them by degrees. The com-
munities either broke up into the lairs of solitary
hermits, or were constantly throwing oflf their more
enthusiastic votaries deeper into the desert : the severer
mortifications of the flesh required a more complete
isolation from the occupations, as well as the amuse-
ments or enjoyments of life. To change the wilderness
into a garden by patient industry, was to enthral the
spirit in some degree to the service of the body ; and in
process of time, the principle was carried to its height.
The more dreary the wilderness, the more unquestioned
the sanctity of its inhabitant ; the more complete and
painful the privation, the more holy the worshipper;
the more the man put off his own nature, and sank
below the animal to vegetative existence, the more con-
summate his spiritual perfection. The full growth of
this system was of a much later period ; it did not come
to maturity till after Christianity had passed through its
conflict with Gnosticism; but its elements were, no
doubt, floating about in the different western regions of
Asia, and either directly through Gnosticism, or from
the emulation of the two sects, which outbid each other,
as it were, in austerity, it worked, at length, into the
very intimate being of the Gospel religion.

• Philonis Opera. Mangef, yoI iL p. 471.

Chap. V. ORIENTALISM AND CHRISTIANITY UNITE. 43

The singular feKcity, the skill and dexterity, if I
may so speak, with which Christianity at first combination
wound its way through these conflicting ele- ?i^^'
ments, combining what was pure and lofty in ChriBtianity.
each, in some instances unavoidably speaking their
language, and simplifying, harmonising, and modifying
each to its own peculiar system, increases our admiration
of its unrivalled wisdom, its deep insight into the uni-
versal nature of man, and its pre-acquaintance, as it
were, with the countless diversities of human character
prevailing at the time of its propagation. But, unless
the same profound wisdom had watched over its in-
violable preservation, which presided over its origin;
unless it had been constantly administered with the
same superiority to the common passions and interests
and speculative curiosity of man, a reaction of the
several systems over which it prevailed was inevitable.
On a wide and comprehensive survey of the whole his-
tory of Christianity, and considering it as left altogether
to its own native force and impulse, it is difficult to
estimate how far the admission, evien the predominance,
of these foreign elements, by which it was enabled to
maintain its hold on different ages and races, may not
have contributed both to its original success and its
final permanence. The Eastern asceticism outbid
Christianity in that austerity, that imposing self-
sacrifice, that intensity of devotion, which acts with the
greatest rapidity, and secures the most lasting authority
over rude and unenlightened minds. By coalescing to
a certain point with its antagonist, it embraced within
its expanding pale those who would otherwise, according
to the spirit of their age, have been carried beyond its
sphere by some enthusiasm more popular and better
suited to the genius of the time, or the temperament of

RISE OF MONASTICISM.

6o(SlI.

the individual. K it lost in purity, it gained in power,
perhaps in permanence. No doubt, in its first contest
with OrientaJism were sown those seeds which grew up
at a later period into Monasticism ; it rejected the
tenets, but admitted the more insidious principle of
Gnosticism ; yet there can be little doubt that in the
dark ages, the monastic spirit was among the great con-
servative and influential elements of Christianity.

The form in which Christianity first encountered this
wide-spread Orientalism, was either Gnosticism,^ or, if
that philosophy had not then become consolidated into
a system, those opinions which subsequently grew up
into that prevalent doctrine of Western Asia. The first

1^ lu this new of Gnostidftm, be-
sides coDstant reference to the original
authorities, I most acknowledge my
obligations to Brucker, Hist. Phil. vol.
ii. p. 1, c. 3; to Mosheim, De Reb.
Christ, ante Const. Mag.; to Beau-
sobre, Hist, du Mauichelsme ; but
above all, to the excellent Histoire du
Gnosticisme, by M. Matter of Stras-
burg, 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1828. Since
the first publication of this work new
light has been thrown on Gnosticism
and the Gnostic Teaching by the dis-
covery of the (impeifect) Philosophu-
mena, Brst erroneously attributed to
Origen by the editor E. Miller, first
and conclusively proved by the learn-
ing and sagacity of Bunsen to be the
work of Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto
near Rome, in the eai-ly part of the
thiixl century. On this point almost
all are agreed — even Bunsen's most
learned antagonists on other questions
raised by this book. Dr. Wordsworth
and DoUinger. On this controversy
I have expressed my judgement fully

in a note to Latin Christianity, vol. i.
p. 35. I think Bunsen triumphant
in most points. In the Epistles to
Archdeacon Hare, and in the Analecta
published by Bunsen, in his great
w^ork Christianity and Mankind, will
be found selected and illustrated the
chief texts of the Philosophumena
which bear on the rise and develop-
ment of Gnosticism. Perhaps, as
usual, Bunsoi's bold and imaginative
divination sees much which eyes not
less keen, but endowed with less
magnifying powers, will fail to dis-
cern.

Besides this work, the Christliche
Gnosis of Baor, and the mature opi-
nions of Neander in the second edition
of his History, will satisfy i-caders who
care to plunge into that dim labyrinth
of Gnosticism, and to investigate its
mysteries at greater length than the
extent and proportions of my work,
and my judgement as to the import-
ance of such researches, peimit me tt
expand into.— (1863.)

Chap. V.

SIMON MAGUS.

CHnum Magna

Orientalist was Simon Magus. In the conflict with St
Peter, related in the Acts, nothing transpires
as to the personal history of this remarkable
man, excepting the extensive success with which he had
practised his magical arts in Samaria, and the Oriental
title which he assumed — " the Power of God." .His
first overtures to the Apostle appear as though he were
desirous of conciliating the friendship and favour of the
new teacher, and would not have been unwilling to
have acted a subordinate part in the formation of his
increasing sect. But from his first rejection, Simon
Magus was an opponent, if there be any truth in the
wild legends, which are still extant, the rival, of Chris-
tianity.^ On the arrival of the Christian teachers in
Samaria, where, up to that period, his influence had pre-
dominated, Simon paid homage to the reality of his
miracles, by acknowledging their superiority to his own.
Still, it should seem that he only considered them as
more adroit wonder-workers, or, as is more probable,
possessed of some peculiar secrets beyond his own know-
ledge of the laws of nature, or, possibly (for imposture
and superstition are ever closely allied), he may have
supposed that they had intercourse with more powerful
Spirits or Intelligences than his own. Jesus was to him
either some extraordinary proficient in magic, who had
imparted his prevailing gifts to his followers, the Apostles ;
or some superior genius, who lent himself to their bid-

4 It is among the most hopeless
difficulties in early Christian history
to decide, to one*s own satis&ction,
what groundwork of truth there may
be in those works which bear the
name of St. Clement, and relate the
contests of St. Peter and Simon Magus.

That in their present form they are a
kind of religious romance, few will
doubt; but they are certainly of great
antiquity, and it is difficult to sup*
pose them either pure invention or
mere embellishmoits of the simple
history in the Acts.

bIMON MAGUS.

BooKiL

ding ; or what Simon asserted himself to be, some power
emanating more directly from the primal Deity. The
"gift of the Holy Ghost" seemed to commmiieate a
great portion, at least, of this magic influence, and to
place the initiated in possession of some mighty secrets,
or to endow him with the control of some potent spirits.
Simon's offer of pecuniary remuneration betrays at once
either that his own object was sordid, as he suspected
theirs to be ; or, at the highest, he sought to increase, by
a combination with them, his own reputation and in-
fluence. Nor, on the indignant refusal of St. Peter,
does his entreaty for their prayers, lest he should incur
the wrath of their offended Deity, by any means imply
a more accurate and Christian conception of their reli-
gion ; it is exactly the tone of a man, half impostor and
half enthusiast, who trembles before the offended anger
of some mightier superhuman being, whom his inef-
fectual magic has no power to control or to appease.
We collect no more than this from the narrative in the
Acts.'

Yet, unless Simon was in fact a personage of con-
siderable importance during the early history of Chris-
tianity, it is diificult to accoimt for his becoming, as he
is called by Beausobre, the hero of the Romance of
Heresy. K Simon was the same with that magician, a
Cypriot by birth, who was employed by Felix as agent
in his intrigue to detach Drusillafrom her husbandj'^this
part of his character accords with the charge of licentious-
ness advanced both a&rainst his life and his doctrines by
his Christian opponents. This is by no mea^ in^pn^
bable; and indeed, even if he was not a person thus

» Acts viii. 9, 24.

* Joseph. Ant. xx. 5, 2. Compaie

Krebt and Koinoel, jx Ixo Act
Apoit.

Chap. Y.

HIS CHARACTEE AND TENETS.

politically prominent and influential, the early writers
of Christianity would scarcely have concurred in repre-
senting him as a formidable and dangerous antagonist
of the Faith, as a kind of personal rival of St. Peter,
without some other groundwork for the fiction besides
the collision recorded in the Acts. The doctrines which
are ascribed to him and to his followers, who continued
to exist for two or three centuries,* harmonise with the
glimpse of his character and tenets in the writings of
St Luke.

Simon probably was one of that class of adventurers
which abounded at this period, or like Apollo- Hismicha-
nius of Tyana and others at a later time, with tenets.
whom the opponents of Christianity attempted to con-
found Jesus and his Apostles. His doctrine was Ori-
ental in its language and in its pretensions." He was
the first JEon or Emanation, or rather perhaps the first
manifestation of the primal Deity. He assumed not
merely the title of the Great Power or Virtue of God,
but all the other appellations — the Word, the Perfec-
tion, the Paraclete, the Almighty, the whole combined
attributes of the Deity .^ He had a companion,

TTi T 1 nix His Helena.

Helena, according to the statement of his
enemies, a beautiful prostitute,y whom he found at Tyre,

* Origen denies the existence of
living Simoiuans in his day (Contra
Gels. lib. i.) ; which implies that they
had subsisted nearly up to that time.

» Irenaus, lib. i. c. 20; the fullest
of the early authorities on Simon.
Compare Grabe's notes. The personal
conflict with St. Peter in Rome, and the
fiuDOUB inscription <*Semoni Sanco,"
must, 1 think, bo abandoned to legend.
That Simon was a heresiarch, and a

heresiarch of great power and wide
influence, not a mythical personage
created out of the passage in the Acts
of the Apostles, is further and still
more conclusively shown in tlie Sixth
Book of the Philosophumena.

* Ego sum Sermo Del, ego sum
Spedosus, efp Paracletus, ego Om-
nipotens, ego omnia Dei. Hieronym.
in Matth. Op. iv. 114.

^ IrenxuB, as above*

48 SmOK'S HELESA.

who became in like manner the first conception (the
Ennoaa) of the Deity ; but who, by her conjanction with
matter, had been enslaved to its malignant influence,
and having fallen under the power of evil angels, had
been ia a constant state of transmigration, and among
other mortal bodies, had occupied that of the famoua
Helen of Troy. Eeausobre,' who elevates Simon into a
Platonic philosopher, explains the Helena as a sublime
allegory. She was the Psyche of his philosophic ro-
mance. The soul, by evil influences, had become impri-
soned in matter. By her the Deity had created the
angels : the angels, enamoured of her, bad hiextricably
entangled her in that pollutiag bondage, in order to
prevent her return to lieaven. To fly from their em-
braces, she had passed from body to body. Connecting
this fiction with the Grecian mythology, she was Mi-
nerva, or impersonated Wisdom ; " perhaps, also, Helena,
or embodied Beauty-''

It is by no meaiia inconsistent with the character of
Orientalism, or with the spirit of the times, to reconcile
much of these different theories. According to the
Eastern system of teaching by symbolic action, Simon
may have carried about a hving and real illustration of
his allegory: his Helena may have been to his dis-
ciples the mystic image of an Emanation from the
divine Mind ; her native purity, indeed, originally

mena, vi. p. 176.

i.35.

^ VfTisi.elKO.Tayiyoi^l'^ir-iuvaiilt

/Tipatrtrt rii iy Kitrfiff tayi^ta

statural of Simon BsZeiis, nf Hrtea bs

bii Ti S.-uiripSA*Toy Q^Tfls iroXAoi,

AUiene. Elic^fB Tt toO II^b^oi

p. 174. Tha Trojan war wcms to

Ixo-"" *'i ^lis I^Pf*!', Ill "ii

l.ive b™ hdd fls a tj-pf of this strife

•ZKiin,! h /uip*ij Afluvai, icn3 tb*to5

umong tm world-ruling angaU, raaarf

by Helen.

p.™, t),» Si i.«pto. PhilliM-phU-

I Chap. V. PROBABILITY OF HISTORY OF SIMON, 4fi

defiled by the contagious maligiiity of matter, bnt
under the guidance of the Hierophant, or rather by licr
sanctifying association with the " Power of God," either
soaring again to her primal sanctity, or even while the
grosser body was still abandoned to ita inalienable cor-
ruption, emancipating the uninfected and unparticipant
soul from all the depravation, almost from the eonseiouB-
neas, of corporeal indulgence. Be this as it Pnn»wi%
may; whether the opinions of Simon were otsinion.
derived from Platooiem, or, as it is much more likely,
immediately from Eastern sources, liis history is singu-
larly characteristic of the state of the public mind at
this period of the world. A man assuming the lofty
appellation of the Power of God, and, with his female
associate, personating the male and female Energies or
Intelligences of the Deity, appears to our colder Euro-
pean reason a fiction too monstrous even for the prover-
bial credulity of human kind. But this Magianiam
of Bimon must be considered in reference to the whole
theory of theurgy or magic, and the prevalent theosophy
or notions of the divine nature. In the East, supersti-
tion had in general repudiated the grossly material
forms in which the Western anthropomorphism had
embodied ita gods ; it remained more spiritual, but it
made up for tliis by the fajitastic manner in which
it multiplied the gradations of spiritual beings more
or less remotely connected with the first great Supreme.
The more subtile the spirits, in general they were the
more beneficent; the more intimately associated with
matter, the more malignant. The avowed object of
Simon was to destroy the authority of the evil spirits,
and to emancipate mankind from their control. This
peopling of the universe with s regularly descending
ksuccessiou of beings was common to the whole East'.
VOL. IL E

THE SIMONIAN DOCTEIxNE

perhaps, in great part, to the West, The later Jewish
■loctrine of angels and devils approached nearly to it ; it
liirked in Platouism, and assumed a higher form in the
Eastern cosmogonies. In thfeae it not merely assigned
guardian or hostile heings to individuals or to nations,
but its peculiar creator to the material universe, from
which it aspired altogether to keep aloof the origin and
iiuthor of the spiritual world ; though the latter superior
and benignant Being was ordinarily introduced as inter-
fering in some manner to correct, to sanctify, and to
spiritualise the world of man ; and it was in accordance
with this part of the theory that Simon proclaimed
himself the representative of Deity. That such was the
Simonian doctrine, I think there can be no doubt ; a
very small part, however, only its elementary notions,
can with any probability be traced to Simon himselt
He was but the remote parent of a numerous, wide-
spread, and inventive line of successors.''

° AtxordiDg to the PhiJ<i?opbtimeiia,
Simon of Getiim in Samaria called
himself a god, in imitatioa nf acertaiD
Apaethus, vho in Lib)rn tmin^il some
parrotg to sajr "ApseOiiis ie a god,"
and Dim let them loose. Thejr Qeir
nbrolkd, alt over Libya and as far aa
Greece, He obtained divine worship.
Bnt n cleveiGifck fauudont the trick,
amghl some of the pairota, and taught
iJiem to say, "Apsethua shot Ha up,
and taught n« lo say, ' Apselhus is a
aod.'" He let them flj to Libya. Upon
wliiuh the Libyans faiimed Apsethua
:ia an impostor. Tbia ii an eld story
told of Hanno the Carthaghunn, .CUaii,
Vnr. Hiet., li?. 30. Its introduclion,
and the stress laid upon it by Hippo-
lytUE, do not give a very high notion
tither of the lenrning or the fairness

what is really ci

if Heresies." Bui
US and Taluable in
HtalioDS from the
kwAfarit fLtydXTt (the Great Ajv-
nouncement, the Scriptures, it may be
called, of the SinKmiau sect). Of the
uislence of this book there c^ be no
doubt. That it was written by the
Simon Usgus of the Actit, it were
litter absurdity to suppose. It may
have been (he work of Dositheus or
Menander, or of both of them, the

monianimi. Tet there can be no doubt
that it was accepted by Hippolytna as
the autheutic woik of Simon. The
chaos of opinions which it discloses
is almost inconcsiTable. Simon must
haie been well read in Plalo i
Aristotle, if not in Pythagoras (Hip-

gbap. y.

SIMONIANISM.

B'lt Simon, himself, was at no time a Christian;
neither was the heir and successor of his doctrines, Me-

poljtus everywhere discerns the in-
fluence, ahoQost the exclusive ln£uence,
of Greek philosophy). He quotes the
poet fknpedocles. His Helena (he
also allegorised the wooden horse) is
derived from Homer and Stesichorus.
He is equally familiar with the Old
Testament (among other points he
holds Fire to be the Primal Godhead ;
this he borrowed, according to Hippo-
lytus, from the saying of Moses, ** Our
God Is a consuming fire **) and with
the New; his Helena is the *'lost
sheep " of the Gospels. And we read
the following sti^ange parody, to our
eai-s profane, on the great truths of
Christianity: "As he had redeemed
his Helena, so by his own wisdom
{iirtyyt&ffews, his Gnosis), he had
brought salvation to the world. For
the angels, through their ambition,
having administered the world badly.
He had come for the restoration of all
things, metamorphosed and made equal
to the Principalities and Powers, and
to the Angels, so as to appear as a
man, not being man, and to suffer
seemingly in Jndsea, though he did
not suffer [with Bunsen, I erase the
«a2], and appeared to the Jews as
the Son, in Samaria as the Father,
among the Gentilee as the Holy Ghost.
But he permitted himself to be called
by any name by which men chose to call
him. The Prophets, he avers, altered
their prophecies inspired by the angels
who created the world [the evil Demi-
urge], whom therefore the believers
in Simon and Helena do not regard,
but assert their own perfect freedom.
For they say that they are saved by his
jTBO} [the grace of Simon].*' (Bunsen,

by one of his arbitrary decisions, to
my judgement in contradiction to the
whole text, supposes all this to be the
Simonian description of our Saviour,
Jesus, not that of Simon.)

Indeed, the most remarkable part of
this doctrine is its strong opposition
to that of the Clementine Homilies.
Here throughout Simon is the Saviour ;
he is the Christ, he that hath stood,
that stands, that will stand (Hippo-
lytus would show that he is not the
Saviour) t>ri xf>i<rrbs oIk ^y ^ifiaVf 6
iffrits, (rrast (rrria'6iA€vos, p. 162.

In the Acts we read that Simon'*s
followers said " this man is the great
Power of God " (pvydfiis rod Beov ri
fi€yd\ri)y and according to all this
system the great Power was the efSux
of the Ineffable, Unapproachable, Un-
known Godhead, the Redeemer of the
materialised souls of men. In the
Clementines he is the Antagonist of
St. Peter, Even in his end there is
a singular peculiarity in the fable.
Here, too, in Home he is opposed to
St. Peter. But instead of attempting
to £y, as in Jhe vulgar tradition
(Apost. Const, vi. 9), and falling and
breaking his neck, Simon offered to
be buried alive, and declared that he
would rise again on the third day.
His disciples buried him in a deep
trench, " but.to this day,** says Hippo-
l3rtus, ** they await his resurrection,*'

Neander dismiss^ Simon and the
Simonians almost with contempt. The
Philosophumena, I think, show that I
am right in attaching more importance
to these doctrines, as an eai'ly sourci
and manifestation of Gnostic opiiuons.

GNOSTICISM AND CHBISTIANITY.

Book II

nander ;^ and it was not till it had made some progress
in the Syrian and Asiatic cities, that Christianity came
into closer contact ^vith those Gnostic, or pre-Gnostic,
systems, which, instead of opposing it with direct hosti-
lity, received it with more insidious veneration, and
warped it into an unnatural accordance with their own
principles. As the Jew watched the appearance of
Jesus, and listened to his announcement as the Messiah,
in anxious suspense, expecting that even yet He would
assume those attributes of temporal grandeur and
visible majesty which, according to his conceptions,
were inseparable from the true Messiah ; as, even after
the death of Jesus, the Jewish Christians still eagerly
anticipated his immediate return to Judgement, his mil-
lennial reign, and his universal dominion : so many of
GnostidBm ^^^^ Oriental speculatists, as soon as Chris-
iSJ?f wtth tianity began to be developed, hailed it as the
Christianity, completion of their own wild theories, and
forced it into accordance with their universal tenet of
distinct intelligences emanating from the primal Being.
Thus Christ, who to the vulgar Jew was to be a tem-
poral king, to the Cabalist or the Chaldean, or to
men of kindred opinions, became a Sephiroth, an
JEon, an emanation from the One Supreme. While
the author of the religion remained on earth, and while
the religion itself was still in its infancy, Jesus was in
danger of being degraded into a King of the Jews, his
Gospel of becoming the code of a new religious re-
public.® Directly it got beyond the borders of Pales-

' Menander baptized in his ovvn
name, being sent by the Supreme
Poicer of God, His baptbm conferred
a i*esun«jCtiou not only to eternal life,
but to eternal yoath. An opinion, as

M. Matter jostly observ s, not easily
i^econcileable to those who considered
the body the unworthy prison of the
soul. Irenaeus, i. 21. Matter, i. 219.
• The Ebionites of Neander. Neai»

CJtaAP. V.

EPHESUS — ST. JOHN.

£phesiu.

tme, and the name of Christ had acquired sanctity and
veneration in the Eastern cities, he became a kind of
metaphysical impersonation, while the religion lost its
purely moral cast^ and assumed the character of a specu-
lative theogony.

Ephesus is the scene of the first collision between
Christianity and Orientalism of which we can
trace any authentic record. Ephesus, I have
before described as the. great emporium of magic arts,
and the place where the unwieldy allegory of the East
lingered in the bosom of the more elegant Grecian
Humanism.' Here the Greek, the Oriental, the Jew,
the philosopher, the magician, the follower of John the
Baptist, the teacher of Christianity, were no doubt
encouraged to settle by the peaceful opulence of the
inhabitants, and the constant influx of strangers, under
the proudly indifierent protection of the municipal autho-
rities and of the Boman Government. In Ephesus, ac-
cording to universal tradition, survived the last of the
Apostles ; and here the last of the Gospels —
some have supposed, I think rightly, the latest
of the writings of the New Testament — appeared in the
midst of this struggle with the foreign elements of con-

der's chapter on the Ebionites and Na-
zarenes is excellent. I acquiesce in his
ezplanatisn of £bion (from the Hebrew
word jV3&5» *^® poor); but instead
u£ taking the woi-d, as Origen did, in
his allegoric vein, as a contemptuous
appellation from their poverty of doo*
trine, 1 would suppose that these re-
fugees, who fled during the war of
Titus and the war of Hadrian, and
•tole back to Jerusalem, were poor as
•ompared with tha Gentile Christians,

! and the earlier Christians of Palestine
addressed by St. James in his Epistle.
" Go to now, ye rich men."

f The Temple of Diana was the
triumph of pare Grecian ai'chitecture :
but her statue was not that of the
divine Huntress like that twin sister
of the Belvidere Apollo in the gallery
at Paris; she was the Diana multi-
mamma, the emblematic impei-sona*
tion of AU-prodactive, All-nutritiTi
Nato.i.

54 THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. Book U

flicting systems. This Gospel was written, I conceive,
not aficainst any peculiar sect or individual, but
to arrest the spirit of Orientalism, which was
working into the essence of Christianity, destroying its
beautiful simplicity, and threatening altogether to
change both its design and its effects upon mankind.
In some points, it necessarily spoke the language, which
was common alike, though not precisely with the same
meaning, to the Platonism of the West and the Theo-
gonism of the East. But how different and peculiar its
sense! It kept the moral and religious, it not alto-
gether distinct from the physical notions, yet clearly
and invariably predominant. While it appropriated
the well-known and almost universal term, the Logos,
or Word of God, to the divine author of Christianity,^
and even adopted some of the imagery from the hypo-
thesis of conflicting light and darkness ; yet it altogether
rejected all the wild cosmogonical speculations on the
formation of the world ; it was silent on that elementary
distinction of the Eastern creed, the separation of matter
from the ethereal mind. The union of the soul with the
Deity, though in the writings of John it takes some-
thing of a mystic tone, is not the Pantheistic absorption
into the parent Deity ; it is an union by the aspiration
of the pious heart, the conjunction by pure and holy
love with the Deity, who, to the ecstatic moral affection
of the adorer, is himself pm'e love. It insists not on
abstraction from matter, but from sin, from hatred,
from all fierce and corrupting passions ; its new life is
active as well as meditative ; a social principle, which
incorporates together all pure and holy men, and con-
joins them with their federal head, Christ, the image

' Compare Bnrton (Bampton Lectures), who fully admits this.

CHAP.y.

NIGOLAITANS — CERINTHUS,

Nicolaltans.

and representative of the God of Love ; it is no prin-
ciple of isolation in solitary and rapturous meditation ;
it is a moral, not an imaginative purity.

Among the opponents to the holy and sublime Chris-
tianity of St. John, during his residence at Ephesus, the
names of the Nicolaitans and of Cerinthus
alone have survived.*^ Of the tenets of the
former, and the author of the doctrine, nothing precise
is known ; but the indignant language with which they
are alluded to in the Sacred Writings implies that they
were not merely hostile to the abstract doctrines, but
also to the moral effects of the Gospel. Nor does
it appear quite clear that the Nicolaitans were a distinct
and organised sect.

Cerinthus was the first of whose tenets we have any
distinct statement, who, admitting the truth of
Christianity, attempted to incorporate with it
foreign and Oriental tenets.* Cerinthus was of Jewish
descent, and educated in the Judaeo-Platonic school of
Alexandria.^ His system was a singular and, appa-

^ General tradition derived the Ni-
oolutans from Nicolas, one of the
seven deacons. Acts vi. 5. Eusebius
(£ocl. Hist. 1. iii. c. 29) relates a story
that Nicolas, accused of being jealous
of his beautiful wife, offered her in
matrimony to whoever chose to take
her. His followers, on this example,
founded the tenet of promiscuous con-
cubinage. Wetstein, with whom Mi-
diaelis and Bosenmiiller are inclined
to agree, supposed that Nicolas was a
tianslation of the Hebrew word Bi-
\eam, both rignifying, in their re-
spective languages, the subduer or the
destroyer of the people. Michaelis,

Eichhom, and Storr, suppose, there-
fore, that it was the name rather of a
sect than an individual, and the same
with those mentioned in 2 Pet. ii. 1 0,
13, 18; iii. 3; Jud. 8, 16. See Ro-
senmiiller on Rev. ii. 6. The Philoso-
phumena takes the popular view of the
Nicolaitans from Nicolas the deacon ;
it is precisely the same view and in
the same words with Irenseus.

* See Mo8heim,De Rebus ante CM.,
p. 199. Matter, i. 221.

k Theodoret, ii. c. 3. This is ex-
pressed by the Philosophumena, It con-
firms also Neander*s ingenious comiexioa
of the tenets with those of Phiio.

SYSTEM OF CERINTHU8.

rently, incongruous fusion of Jewish, CIuTBtian, and

Oriental notions. He did not, like Simon or Menander,
invest liimself in a sacred and mysterious character,
though he pretended to angelic revelations." Like all
the Orientala, hia imagination was hannted with the
notion of the malignity of matter ; and his object seems
to have been to keep both the primal Being and the
Christ uninfected with its contagion. The Creator of
the material world, therefore, was a secondary being —
an angel or angels ; as Ceriuthus seems to have adhered
to the Jewish, and did not adopt the Oriental language."
But his national and hereditary reverence for the Law
withheld him from that bold and hostile step which was
taken by most of the other Gnostic sects, to wliich, no
doubt, the general animosity to the Jews in Syria and
Egypt concurred — the identification of tlie God of the
Jewish covenant with the inferior and malignant author
of the material creation. He retained, according to one
account, his reverence for the rites, the ceremonies, the
Law, and the Prophets," of Judaism, to which he was
probably reconciled by the allegoric interpretations of
Philo. The Christ, in his theory, was of a higher order
than those secondary and subordinate beings who had
presided over the older world. But, with the jealousy
of all the Gnostic sects, lest the pure Emanation from
the Father should be unnecessarily contaminated by too
intimate a conjunction with a material and mortal form,
B relieved him irom the degradation of a human birth.

}

THE LATER GNOSTICS. 67

Iby supposing that the Christ above descended on the

[ man JesuB at his baptism ; and from the ignominy of a

I mortal death, by making him reascend before that

I crisis, having aecomphshed hia misaiou of making

I known "the Unknown Father," the pure and primaJ

I.Being, of whom the worshippers of the Creator of the

h material universe, and of the Jehovah of the Jews, were

r alike ignorant. But the most inconsequential part of

the doctrine of Cerinthus was his retention of the Jewish

doctrine of the millennium. It must, indeed, have been

jiurified fi-om some of its grosser and more sensual

for the Christos, the immaterial Emanation

from the Father, was to preside during its Jong period of

I harmony and peace.''

The later Gnostics were bolder but more consistent
I innovators on the simple scheme of Chris- lbu,
I tiauity. It was not till the second century """"*
f that the combination of Orientalism with Christianity
was matured uito the more perfect Gnosticism. This
was, perhaps, at its height from about the year 120 to
140. In all the great cities of the East, ia which
Christianity had established its most flourishing com-
munities, sprang up this rival, which aspired to a still
higher degree of knowledge than was revealed in the
G^pel, and boasted that it soared almost as much above
the vulgar Christianity as above the vulgar Paganism.
Antioch, where the first church of the Christians had
been opened, beheld the followers of Satuminus with-
drawing, in a proud assurance of tlieir superiority, from
the common brotherhood of beUevers, and insulating

' CerinthuswMOtmilicredhjrsoDM I to eonWn hia grosMr dcntrlne of It*
wrly writert the Mithor of the Apo- milkunial reign of Christ. Uionjbiiu
ealfpM, beouise tl»t work appcarfd | apod Eiueb. iii. 282 ; vii. 25,

58 GS0STICI8M — THE PLEBOMA. Book It

themselves as the gifted posseasore of still higher spf-
ritual secrets. Edessa, whose king very early Christian
fable had exalted into a personal correspondent viih
the Saviour, rang with the mystic hymns of Barde-
sanes ; to the countless religious and philosophical
factions of Alexandria were added those of Basilides
and Valentinus; until a still more unscrupulous and
ardent enthusiast, Marcion of Pontus, threw aside in
disdain the whole existing religion of the Gospel, re-
modelled the sacred books, and established himself aa
tiie genuine hierophant of the real Christian mya^
teries.

Gnosticism, though very different from Christianity,
ThsprUBAi was of a sublime and imposing character as
(inusiktm. an imaginative creed, and not more unreason-
able than the other attempts of human reason to solve
the ioesplicable Becret, the origin of evU. Thowgh
variously modified, the systems of the different teachera
were- essentially the same. The primal Deity remained
aloof in his unapproachable majesty; the Unspeakable,
the Ineffable, the Nameless, the Self-e.xisting.^ The
Pleroma, the fulness of the Godhead, expanded
itself in still outspreading circles, and ap-
proached, till it comprehended, the universe. From
the Pleroma emanated all spiritual being, and to the
Pleroma all such being was to return and mingle again
in indissoluble unity. By their entanglement in malign
and hostile matter — the source of moral aa well aa phy-
sical evil — all outwardly existing beings had degenerated

1 The aiiUior

the ApostoliL

Ccn-

Dot

/p. -roB

Xp,o-

IS the fi.»t pri

apk

mi. !ji/i

„P7i^

heresiB, rhw

^k.

a^»

TOY, law

V, «1 f.*

Lib. n

O.10.

Chap. V. MALIGNITY OF MATTER. 59

ttom their high origin ; their redemption from this
foreign bondage, their restoration to purity and peace
in the bosom of Divinity, the universal harmony of all
immaterial existence, thus resolved again into the Ple-
roma, was the merciful design of the ^on The .Eon
Christ, who had for this purpose invaded and ^^*^^
subdued the foreign and hostile provinces of the pro-
siding Energy, or Deity, of matter.

In all the Oriental sects this primary principle, the
malignity of matter, haunted the imagination ; Malignity of
and to this principle every tenet must be ac- °^*'^''*
commodated. The sublimest doctrines of the Old Tes-
tament — the creative omnipotence, the sovereignty, the
providence of God, as well as the grosser and anthropo-
morphic images, in which the acts and passions, and
even the form of man, are assigned to the Deity — fell
under the same remorseless proscription. It was pollu-
tion, it was degradation to the pure and elementary
spirit, to mingle with, to approximate, to exercise even
the remotest influence over, the material world. The
creation of the visible universe was made over, according
to all, to a secondary, with most, to a hostile Demiurge.
The hereditary reverence which had modified the opinions
of Cerinthus, with regard to the Jehovah of his fathers,
had no hold on the Syrian and Egyptian speculatists.
They fearlessly pursued their system to its consequences,
and the whole of the Old Testament was abandoned io
the inspiration of an inferior and evil daemon ; the Jews
were left in exclusive possession of their national Deity,
whom the Gnostic Christians disdained to ac- K^ection of
knowledge as bearing any resemblance to the tament
abstract, remote, and impassive Spirit. To them, the
mission of Christ revealed a Deity altogether unknown
in the dark ages of a world which was the creation and

50 EEJECTION OF THE SCEIPTCEES.

the domain of an inferior being. They would not, like
the philosophising Jews, take refuge in allegory to
explain tbo too material images of the works of the
Deity in the act of creation, and his subsequent rest ;
the intercourse with man in the garden of Eden ; the
trees of knowledge and of life ; the Serpent, and the
Fall. They rejected the whole as altogether extraneous
to ChrlBtianity, belonging to another world, with which
the God revealed by Christ had no concern or relation.
If they condescended to discuss the later Jewish history,
it was merely to confirm their preconceived notions.
The apparent investiture of the Jefiovah with the state
and attributes of a temporal sovereign, the imperfection
of the Law, the barbarity of the people, the bloody wars
in which they were engaged ; in short, whatever in
Judaism was irreconcileable with a purely intellectual
and morally perfect Byatem, argued ita origin from an
imperfect and secondary author.

But some tenets of primitive Christianity came no less
odome into direct collision with the leading principles
Sew. of Orientalism. The human nature of Jesua

was too deeply impressed upon all the Gospel history,
and perplexed the whole school, as well the precursors
of GnoHticism as the more perfect Gnostics. Hia birth
and death bore equal evidence to the unspi ritualised
materialism of his mortal body. The Gnostics seized
with avidity the distinction between the divine and
human nature ; but the Christ, the JEon, which ema-
nated from the pure and primal Deity, as yet unknown
in the world of the inferior creator, must be relieved as
far as possible from the degrading and contaminating
association with the mortal Jesus. The simpler hypo-
thesis of the union of the two natures, miugled too
closely, according to tlieir views, the ill-assorted com- .

Chap. V. TENETS OF GNOSTICISM. 61

panioDS. The human birth of Jesus, though guarded
by the virginity of his mother, was still offensive to
their subtler and more fastidious purity. The Christ,
therefore, the Emanation from the Pleroma, descended
upon the man Jesus at his baptism. The death of Jesus
was a still more serious cause of embarrassment. They
seem never to have entertained the notion of an ex-
piatory sacrifice; and the connexion of the ethereal
mind with the pains and sufferings of a carnal body, was
altogether repulsive to their strongest prejudices. Before
the death, therefore, of Jesus, the Christ had broken off
his temporary association with the perishable body of
Jesus, and surrendered it to the impotent resentment
of Pilate and of the Jews ; or, according to the theory of
the Docetse, adopted by almost all the Gnostic sects, the
whole union with the material human form was an
illusion upon the senses of men ; it was but an apparent
human being, an impassive phantom, which seemed to
undergo all the insults and the agony of the cross.

Such were the general tenets of the Gnostic sects,
emanating from one simple principle. But the details
of their cosmogony, their philosophy, and their religion,
were infinitely modified by local circumstances, by the
more or less fanciful genius of their founders, and by the
stronger infusion of the different elements of Flatonism,
Gabalism, or that which, in its stricter sense, may be
called Orientalism. The number of circles, or emana-
tions, or procreations, which intervened between the
spiritual and the material world; the nature and the
rank of the Creator of that material world ; his more or
less close identification with the Jehovah of Judaism ;
the degree of malignity which they attributed to the
latter ; the office and the nature of the Christos, — these

8ATUENINUS.

Bo(«IL

Satumlnns.

were open points, npon which they admitted, or, at least,
assumed, the utmost latitude.

The earliest of the more distinguished Gnostics is
Satuminus, who is represented as a pupil of
Menander, the successor of Simon Magus/
But this Samaritan sect was always in direct hostility
with Christianity, while Satuminus departed less from
the Christian system than most of the wilder and more
imaginative teachers of GnosticisuL The strength of
the Christian party in Antioch may in some degree
have overawed and restrained the aberrations of his
fancy. Satuminus did not altogether exclude the primal
spiritual Being from all concern or interest in the mate-
rial world. For the Creator of the visible universe, he
assumed the seven great angels (which the later Jews
had probably borrowed, though with different powers,
from the seven Amschaspands of Zoroastrianism) or
rather the Chief of these seven, who was the God of the
Jews. Neither were these angels essentially evil, nor
was the domain on which they exercised their creative
power altogether surrendered to the malignity of matter ;
it was a kind of debateable ground between the powers
of evil and of good. The historian of Gnosticism has
remarked the singular beauty of the fiction regarding
the creation of man. " The angels tried their utmost
efforts to form man ; but there arose under their creative
influence only * a worm creeping upon the eardi.' Grod,
condescending to interpose, sent down his Spirit, which
breathed into the reptile the living soul of man." It is

' On Satarninus, see Irenseus, i. 22 ;
Easeb. iv. 7; £p:plian. Haer. 23;
rheodoret, Har. Fab. lib. iii. ; Ter-
luilian, De Animft^ 23; De Prscscrip.

cont. H»r. c. 46. Of the modeiiis,
Mosheim, p. 336 ; Matter, i. 276. He
lived under Hadrian.

Chap. V.

DOCTRINE OF SATURNINUS.

not quite easy to connect with this view of the origin
of man the tenets of Satuminns, that human kind
was divided into two distinct races, the good an^. the
bad. Whether the latter became so from receiving a
feebler and less influential portion of the divine Spirit,
or whether they were a subsequent creation of Satan,
who assumes the station of the Ahriman of the Persian
system, does not clearly appear." But the descent of
Christ was to separate finally these two conflicting races.
He was to rescue the good from the predominant power
of the wicked ; to destroy the kingdom of the spirits of
evil, who, emanating in countless numbers from Satan
their chief, waged a fatal war against the good ; and to
elevate them far above the power of the chief of the
angels, the God of the Jews, for whose imperfect laws
were to be substituted the purifying principles of Asce-
ticism, by which the children of light were reunited to
the source and origin of light. The Christ himself was
the Supreme Power of God, immaterial, incorporeal,
formless, but assuming the semblance of man ; and his
followers were, as far as possible, to detach themselves
from their corporeal bondage, and assimilate themselves
to his spiritual being. Marriage was the invention of
Satan and his evil spirits, or at best, of the great Angel,
the God of the Jews, in order to continue the impure
generation. The elect were to abstain from propagating
a race of darkness and imperfection. Whether Satumi-
nus, with the Essenes, maintained this total abstinence
as the especial privilege of the higher class of his fol-
lowers, and permitted to the less perfect the continuation

* The latter opinion is that of
Mosheim. M. Matter, on the contrary,
eays, — " Satan n'a pas poortant cr^
ecB homines, 11 les a troav^ tout faits.

il s'en est empar^ ; c'est lit sa sph^
d'activit^et la limite de sa pnissance."
t. i. p. 285.

ALEXASDRIA— BA3ILIDKS.

of their kind, or whether he abaadoned altogether this
perilous and degrading office to the wifked, liis system
appears incomplete, as it seenas to yield up as desperate
the greater part of the human race ; to perpetuate the
dominion of evil ; and to want the general and final
abBorption of all existence into the purity and happiness
ot the primal Being.

Alexandria, the centre, as it were, of the speculative

and intellectual activity of the Koman world,

to which ancient Egypt, Asia, Palestine, and

Greece, furnished the mingled population of her streets,

and the conflicting opinionfl of her schools, gave birth

to the two succeeding and most widely disseminated

sects of Gnosticism, those of Basilides and Valentinus.

Basilides was a Syrian by birtb, and by some is sup-

posed to have been a scholar of Menander, at

the same time with Satuminus. He claimed,

however, Glaucias, a disciple of St. Peter, as his original

teacher; and his doctrines assumed the boastful title of

the Secret Traditions of the great Apostle.' He also had

some ancient prophecies, those of Cham and Barkaph,"

peculiar to his sect. According to another authority,

he was a Persian ; but thia may have originated from

the Zoroastrian cast of his primary tenets." From the

Zendavesta, Basilides drew the eternal hostility of mind

and matter, of light and darkness ; but the Zoroastrian

doctrine seema to have accommodated itself to the

• AiMorfii^to thePhiloiophoineiM,
th« BaBJtidiana proftsaed tn deriTt thar
doctrine fram the Apoetle MatthiHs.

■ Irenaus diflers, in his view of the
Builidion theo^;, from the remaios of
" " ' n hooks appalled to by
Clement of AlciandriH, Strom, vl.

Chap. V. THE ^ONS OF GNOSTICISM. 65

kindred systems of Egypt. In fact, the Gnosticism of
Basilides appears to have been a fusion of the ancient
sacerdotal religion of Egypt with the angelic and daemo-
niac theory of Zoroaster J Basilides did not, it seems,
maintain his one abstract unapproachable Deity far
above the rest of the universe, but connected him, by a
long and insensible gradation of intellectual develop-
ments or manifestations, with the visible and material
world. From the Father proceeded seven beings, who
together lyith him made up an ogdoad ; constituted the
first scale of intellectual beings, and inhabited the highest
heaven, the purest intellectual sphere. According to
their names — ^Mind, Reason, Intelligence (^povrjai^),
Wisdom, Power, Justice, and Peace — they are merely,
in our language, the attributes of the Deity, impersonated
in this system.

The number of these primary ^Eons is the same as
the Persian system of the Deity and the seven Am-
schaspands, and the Sephiroth of the Cabala, and, pro-

^ The Philosophumena entera at &yy€\oSi ov Oths, ov8i 8Xwj ri rStv
some length into the doctrines of Ba- I 6pofia(6fifvay ^ 8i* aicrO^crcws Xa/i-
silides, and has, seemingly, many cita* { popofityav ff voiyrSiv vparyfuirtovt

lions from his writings. Hippolytus,
as is his wont, traces the origin of
them to the Greek philosopher. Ac-
cording to the Philosophumena, the
primal Deity was so absolutely se-
cluded from all beings as himself to

oXA* oi^TO) \€irrofi«poT6pciS irdvrcov
airX&s if^piyeypafjiixivwVf oIk &u
0ths

otroi Si OVK oi'Ta)

cease to be a being. Basilides went ; hirpoaipiroos, iiiraBwt, iLPnriOvfiiircas

on in his negation till he denied the i ie6<rfioy ^9cXi7<rc 7roii,ircu (p. 58, iu

existence of God. It is a strange '[ Bunsen*s Analecti). The first seems

oassage, which Bunsen seems to me I to have been a purely intellectual or

.0 have eluded : 'Eirel oif^^y ^v, ohx ' metaphysical evolution. But this

5Xi7, OVK ohaia, obK hvolffiov, ohx , ^»°g» o*" °® Being, contained within

rtirXoOy, ol ffMfrov, oh vorirhy, '■ itself the seed of the whole uniTerse.

OVK kvaiffBitroyt oi/K &u$p<oir9Sf oifK the Cosmos.

VOL. II. 3'

THE MYSTICAL ABRAXAS.

Book II.

bably, as far as that abstruse subject is known, of the
ancient Egyptian theology.*

The seven primary effluxes of the Deity went on
producing and multiplying, each forming its own realm
or sphere, till they reached the number of 365.** The
total number formed the mystical Abraxas,^ the legend

• See Matter, vol, ii. p. 5-37.

^ It is difficult to suppose that this
number, either as originally borrowed
from the Egyptian theology, or as
invented by Basilides, had not some
astronomical reference. All this, ob-
serves Bunsen, is merely the mytho-
logical form of psychologic speculation,
based upon the simple words of the
Prologue and coupled with the imagi-
nary astronomy of the ancient world.
Bunsen goes on to describe exceedingly
well the next process according to the
Philosophumena : " It is stated in our
extracts that the words, ' Let there be
light,' produced the genn or seed of
the world, which, adds Basilides, is
the light that came into the world
^John i.). The beauty of Divine good-
ness attracts the element of life in
matter ; this Divine element Basilides
calls the Sonship. There are three
classes of Sonship. The most refined
element flies by its own nature up to
the Ineffable Father ; the second Son-
ship uses the Holy Spirit as a wing,
but rises by its assistance to the pa-
ternal glory, from whence the Holy
Spirit, being repulsed by the Ine£fable
(and attracted by matter), sinks into an
intermediate state below the Ineffable
(purely intellectual), but still above this
earth (the mere psychical or animal).
The essence of the life of this earth
is ooncentrated in the Demiurgos, or
Spirit of the material world, whoso

Son (conscious realization?) is much
more elevated than himself. This
material world in its brute resistance,
in its blind hostility to the Divine
formative and limiting power, is the
evil principle." Christianity and Man-
kind, vol. i. p. 18. In the original
of which this is the summary, there
is much grace and fancy of imageiy ;
but how far are we from the simplicity
of the Gospel, even from that part of
St. John which borders most closely
on the mystic ?

* Irenseus, i. 23. See in M. Matter,
ii. 49, 54, the countless interpretations
of this mysterious woitl. We might
add others to those collected by his
industry. M. Matter adopts, though
with some doubt, the opinion of M
Bellerman and M. Munter. ** Le pre-
mier de ces ^crivains expiique le mot
d' Abraxas par le kopte, qui est in-
contestablement h. Tandenne langue
d'Egypte ce que la grec moderne est
au langage de Tancienne Grcfce. La
syllable sadsch, que les Grecs ont dd
conveilir en aa^, ou (ras, ou aaC
n'ayant pu exprimer la demi^re lettre
de cette syllable, que par les lettres
X, 2, ou Z, signifierait parole, et
abrak beniy saint, adorable, en sorte
que le mot d'Abraxas tout entie.*
offrirait le sena de parole sacrie, M.
Munter ne s'^loigne de cette interpr^
tation, que pour les syllables abrak
qu'il prend pour le mot kopte * berra.

Mil

Chap. V. THE BASILIDIAN SYSTEM. 67

which is found on so many of the ancient gems, the
greater part of which are of Gnostic origin ; though, as
much of this theory was from the doctrines of ancient
Egypt, not only the mode of expressing their tenets by
symbolic inscriptions, but even the inscription itself, may
be originally Egyptian.^ The lowest of these worlds
bordered on the realm of matter. On this confine the
first confusion and invasion of the hostile elements took
place. At length the chief Angel of this sphere, on the
verge of intellectual being, was seized with a desire of
reducing the confused mass to order. With his assistant
angels, he became the Creator. Though the form was
of a higher origin, it was according to the idea of
Wisdom, who, with the Deity, was part of the first
and highest ogdoad. Basilides professed the most
profound reverence for Divine Providence; and in
Alexandria, the God of the Jews, softened ofi", as it
were, and harmonised to the philosophic sentiment by
the school of Philo, was looked upon in a less hostile
light than by the Syrian and Asiatic school. The East
lent its system of guardian angels, and the assistant
angels of the Demiurge were the spiritual rulers of the
nations, while the Creator himself was that of the Jews.
Man was formed of a triple nature: his (corporeal
form of brute and malignant matter ; his animal soul,
the Psychic principle, which he received from the
Demiurge ; the higher and purer spirit, with which he
was endowed from a loftier region. This pure and
ethereal spirit was to be emancipated from its impure

nowoeaUi ce qui donne k Tensemble lion of these Egyptian and Egypto

le sens de parole nottoeau" Matter,
ii. 40.

^ See, in the supplement to M.
Matter's work, a very carious collec-

Gi'ecian medals ; tuid a worlc of Dr.
Walsh on these coins. Compare, lilce-
wise, Beiiyen's Lettres k M. Letronne,
particularly p. 23.

VALENTISUB.

le Eaet.^^
in ordeK^I

adations ^M
d to its -■

companionship ; and Egypt, or rather the whole Eae^i
leot the doctrine of the tranamigration of souls, in ordeK'
to carry this stranger upon earth through the gradations
(if suecessive purificalion, till it was readmitted to its
jiarent heaven.

Basilidea, in the Christian doctrine which he inter-
wove with this imaginative theory, followed the usual
GntKtic course.' The Christ, the first ^on of the
Deity, descended on the man Jesus at his baptism;
l)ut, by a peculiar tenet of their o*vii, the Ba^ilidiang
i-c'scued even the man Jesus from the degrading suffer-
ings of the cross. Simon the Cyrenian was changed
into the form of Jesus ; on him the enemies of the
Crucified wasted their wrath, while Jesus stood aloof in
the form of Simon, and mocked their impotent malice.
Theirmoral perceptionemust have been singularly bhnded
hv their passion for their favourite tenet, not to discern
Iiow much they lowered their Saviour by making him
thus render up an innocent victimaa his own substitute.

Valentinus appears to have been considered the most
formidable and dangerous of this school of
Gnostics.' He was twice excommunicated,
and twice received again into the bosom of the Church.
He did not confine his dangerous opinions to the school
of Alexandria ; he introduced the wild Oriental specu-
lations into the more peaceful West; taught at Rome;
and, a third time being expelled from the Christian
society, retired to Cyprus, an island where the Jews<

' Ivensas, L 39, oompU'eil with
tbe other aaliors cited above.

'' liHUEUE, Hai'. V. Clemens. Met.,
Strom. Origen, De Princip. contra
C"1aum. Tlis anthor of the Didaa-
caha Oi-lentaJU, at the end of the

»of Clementof Aleiandtk. tm-
m adienn* TaJentin. Theo-
, Fab. Hnr. i. 7. Epiphaoios,
. 31. Philosophumena, p. 177
Bmuen's Aiulecta, rol.

CHAP Ir.

SYSTEM OF TALESTLNUS.

were formerly numerous till the fatal insurrection in
the time of Hadrian ; and where probably the Oriental
philosophy might not find an unwelcome reception, on
the border, as it were, of Emx)pe and Asia."^

Yalentinns annihilated the complexity of pre-existiiijr
heavens, which, perhaps, connected the system oi'
Basilides with that of ancient Egjrpt, and did not
interpose the same infinite number of gradations be-
tween the primal Deity and the material world, lie
descended much more rapidly into the sphere of
Christian images and Christian language, or nither, ht^
carried up many of the Christian notions and terms,
and enshrined them in the Pleroma, the region ot
spiritual and inaccessible light. The fundamental
tenet of Orientalism, the Incomprehensibility of the
Great Supreme, was the essential principle of his
system, and was represented in terms pregnant with
mysterious sublimity. The first Father, the Monad,
was called Bythos, the Abyss, the Depth, the Un-
fathomable, who dwelt alone in inscrutable and ineffable
height, with his own first Conception, his Ennoia, who
bore the emphatic and awful name of Silence.^ I'lie
first development took place after endless ages, in which
the Unfathomable dwelt in his majestic solitude, but
he found not delight in his solitude. Love was his
motive. Love must have an object — something to love.*

« Tertull. advers. Valentiii., c. 4.
Epiphan. Massuet. (Diss, in Ircn. p. x.
14) doubts this part of the history of
Valentinus.

*« According to Hippolytus (vi.
29-30) the strict Valentinians did not
allow that Sig^ was to be reckoned as
Sizygos, but they maintained that
Bythos alone produced the iEons ; and

this appears to have been the doctrine
of Valentinus. Rossel's Picture of the
Valentinian System. Bunsen, i. 143.
* ^i\4prifju>s ykp ohK ijv. 'Aydirri
ykpi <^t}<rly, ^v %\os, ^ 9h iiydirri
oitK %<my kydmi, ih,v yAi J rh kya*
ir^fAtyov, Phiiosophumena, p. 184
Hippolytos traces all Valentlnianism tc
Pythagoras and the Tinueos of Plato.

70 VALENTINIAHI8M. Book U

This development or self- manifestation was Mind
(fjous), whose appropriate consort was Aletheia or
Truth. These formed the first great quaternion, the
highest scale of being. From Mind and Truth pro-
ceeded the Word and Life (Logos and Zoe) ; their
raanifeetations were Man and the Church, Anthropos
and Ecclesia, and so the first ogdoad was coraplete.
From the Word and Life proceeded ten more Mona ;
lint these seem, from their names, rather qualities of
[he Supreme; at least the five masculine names, for the
feminine appear to imply some departure from the
pure elementary and unimpassioned nature of the
primal Parent, The malea are — Biithios, profound,
with his consort Mixis, conjunction; Ageratos, that
grows not old, with Henosis or union ; Autophyes, self-
siibsistent, wdth Hedone, pleasure ; Akinetos, motion-
less, with Syncrasis, comraixture ; the Only Begotten
and Blessedness. The offspring of Man and the Church
were twelve, and in the females we seem to trace thp
shadowy prototypes of the Christian graces: — the
Paraclete and Faith ; the Paternal and Hope ; the
Maternal and Charity; the Ever-intelligent and Pru-
dence ; Ecclesiastic OS (a term apparently expressive of
church union) and Eternal Happiness ; "Will and Wisdom
(Theletos and Sophia).

These thirty ^ons dwelt alone within the saered and
inviolable circle of the Pleroma : they were all, in one
sense, manifestations of the Deity, all purely intellec-
tual, an universe apart But the peace of this meta-
physical hierarchy wa? disturbed; and here we are
presented with a noble allegory, which, as it were,
brings these abstract conceptions within the reach of
human sympathy. The last of the dodecarchy which
sprang from Man and tlie Church was

I
I

Chap. V.

VALENTINIANISM.

Wisdom. Without intercourse with her consort Will,
Wisdom was seized with an irresistible passion for that
knowledge and intimate union with the primal Father,
the Unfathomable, which was the sole privilege of the
first-bom. Mind. She would comprehend the Incom-
prehensible: love was the pretext, but temerity the
motive. Pressing onward under this strong impulse,
she would have reached the remote sauctuary, and
would finally have been absorbed into the primal
Essence, had she not encountered Horus (the imper-
sonated boundary between knowledge and the Deity).
At the persuasion of this " limitary cherub " (to borrow
Miltoi's words), she acknowledged the incomprehen-
sibilitj of the Father, returned in humble acquiescence
to her lowlier sphere, and allayed the passion begot of
Wonder. But the harmony of the intellectual world
was destroyed ; a redemption, a restoration, was neces-
sary ; and (for now Valentinus must incorporate the
Christan system into his own) from the first iEon, the
divine Mind, proceeded Christ and the Holy Ghost.
Christcommunicated to the listening Mons the mystery
of the imperishable nature of the Father, and their
own procession from him; the delighted ^ons com-
menorated the restoration of the holy peace, by each
consributing his most splendid gift to form Jesus,
encrcled with his choir of angels.*^
'Valentinus did not descend immediately from his

^ Each iEon took the best that he
poflsosed, and with these they formed
A hf>py image to the praise of the
Heaenly Father, who is also called
^viar (Soter), and Christos and Lo-
flros^and the Whole, because he bears
witin him the flower of everything;
and they sarrounded him with roi*

nistering angels to be his companions.
Rossel in Bunsen, p. 149. According
to Hippolytus (Bunsen adds in a note),
this ideal Christ Jesus is also called
Logos, but distinct from the Logos
of the inmost Divine sphere, called the
heavenly Logos.

72 VALENTINIANISM.

domain of metaphysical abstraction ; he interposed an
intermediate sphere between that and the material
world. The desire or passion of Sophia, impersonated,
became an inferior Wisdom ; she was an outcast from
the Pleroma, and lay floating in the dim and formless
chaos without The Christos in mercy gave her form
and substance ; she preserved, as it were, some fragrance
of immortality. Her passion was still strong for higher
tbtngH. tor the light which she could not appreliend ;
and she incessantly attempted to enter the forbidden
circle of the Pleroma, but was again arrested by Eonia,
who uttered the mystic name of Jao. Sadly she re-
turned to the floating elements of inferior being; she
was surrendered to Passion, and with his assirtance
produced the material world. The tears whidi she
shed, at the thought of her outcast condition, brmed
the humid element; her smiles, when she thought of
the region of glory, the light; her fears and herstrrows,
the grosser elements, Clirist descended no more to her
assistance, but sent Jesus, the Paraclete, the Siviour,
with his angels; and with his aid, all substnne yioa
dirided into material, animal, and spiritual. The spiri-
tual, however, altogether emanated from the liglit oi
her divine assistant; the first formation of the aninal
(the Psychic) was the Demiui^e, the Creator, the
Saviour, the Father, the king of all that was conaib-
stantial with himself, and finally, the material, of wKch
lie was only the Demiurge or Creator. Thus lere
formed the seven intermediate spheres, of which he
Demiurge and his assistant angels (the seven agaij; of
the Persian system), with herself, made up a secmd
Ogdoad — the image and feeble reflection of the fomur;
Wisdom representing the primal Parent ; the Demiuga
the divine Mind, though he was ignorant of his motbr.

}

Chap. V. VALENTINIANI8M. 73

more ignorant than Satan himself; the othei sidereal
angels, the rest of the Mona. By the Demiurge the
lower world was formed.

Mankind consisted of three classes : the spiritual, who
are enlightened with the divine ray from Jesus ; the
animal or psychic, the offspring and kindred of the
Demiurge; the material, the slaves and associates of
Satan, the prince of the material world. They were
represented, as it were, by Seth, Abel, and Cain. This
organisation or distribution of mankind harmonised
with tolerable facility with the Christian scheme. But
by multiplying his spiritual beings, Valentinus em-
barrassed himself in the work of redemption or restora-
tion of this lower and still degenerating world. With
him, it was the Christos, or rather a faint image and
reflection (for all his intelligences multiplied them-
selves by this reflection of their being), who passed
through the material form of the Virgin, like water
through a tube. It was Jesus who descended upon the
Saviour at his baptism, in the shape of a dove; and
Valentinus admitted the common fantastic theory with
regard to the death of Jesus. At the final consumma-
tion, the latent fire would burst out (here Valentinus
admitted the theory common to Zoroastrianism and
Christianity) and consume the very scoria of matter;
the material men, with their prince, would utterly
perish in the conflagration. Those of the animal, the
Psychic, purified by the divine ray imparted by the
Kedeemer, would, with their parent, the Demiurge,
occupy the intermediate realm ; there were the just men
made perfect ; while the great mother, Sophia, would at
length be admitted into the Pleroma or intellectual
jphere.

Gnosticism was pure poetry, and Bardesanes was the

BABDESANES.

BllOK II.

poet of Gnosticism.™ For above two centuries, the hymns
of this remarkable man, and those of his son
Harmonins, enchanted the ears of the Syrian
Christians, till they were expelled by the more orthodox
raptures of Ephraem the Syrian. Among the most re-
markable circumstances relating to Bardesanes, who lived
at the court of Abgar, king of Edessa, was his inquiry
into the doctrines of the ancient Gymnosophists of India,
which thus connected, as it were, the remotest East with
the great family of religious specidatists ; yet the theory
of Bardesanes was more nearly allied to the Persian or
the Chaldean ; and the language of his poetry was in
that fervent and amatory strain which borrows the
wannest metaphors of human passion to kindle the soul
to divine love.°

Bardesanes deserved the glory, though he did not
suffer the pains, of martyrdom. Pressed by the philo-
sopher ApoUonius, in the name of his master, the
Emperor Verus, to deny Christianity, he replied, " I
fear not death, which I shall not escape by yielding to
the wishes of the Emperor." Bardesanes had opposed
with vigorous hostility the system of Marcion;® he
afterwards appears to have seceded, or, outwardly con-
forming, to have aspired in private to become the head

" Valentinus, according to Tertul-
lian, wrote psalms (De Came Christi,
c. 20) ; his disciple Marcos explained
his system in verse, and introduced the
Mons as speaking. Compare Hahn,
p. 26. Bardesanes wrote 150 psalms,
the number of those of David.

The reader who is carious to follow
out a more complete development of
Valentinianism may well consult the
diji«)uisition of Rof sel (a promising pupil

of Neander, who died early) in Bunsen,
i. p. 142. It is of course far mo)v
full, perhaps occasionally fancifnlly
full, than my outline, which, however,
I think shows almost the essential
perils of the doctrine.

■ Theodoret, Haret Fab. 209.

** According to Eusebius, E. H. v, 38,
Bardesanes approached much nearer to
orthodoxy, though he still '* bore somd
tokens of the sable stream* "

CHAp.y.

HIS system:— ms poetbt.

of another Gnostic sect, which, in contradistinction to
those of Satominus and Yalentinns, may be called the
Mesopotamian or Babylonian. With him, the primal
Deity dwelt alone with his consort^ his primary thought
or conception. Their first offiprings, .ZElons, or Emana-
tions, were Christ and the Holy Ghost, who, in his
system, was feminine, and nearly allied to the Sophia,
or Wisdom, of other theories ; the four elements, — ^the
dry earth, and the water, the fire, and the air, — who
make np the celestial Ogdoad. The Son and his
partner, the Spirit or Wisdom, with the assistance of
the elements, made the worlds, which they surrendered
to the government of the seven planetary spirits and
the sun and moon, the visible types of the primal union.
Probably these, as in the other systems, made the
second Ogdoad ; and these, with other astral influences,
borrowed from the Tsabaism of the region, the twelve
signs of the zodiac, and the thirty-six Decani, as he
called the rulers of the 360 days, governed the world
of man. And here Bardesanes became implicated with
the eternal dispute about destiny and freewill, on which
he wrote a separata treatise, and which entered into
and coloured all his speculations.^ But the Wisdom
which was the consort of the Son was of an inferior
nature to that which dwelt with the Father. She was
the Sophia Achamoth, and, faithless to her spiritual
partner, she had taken delight in assisting the Demiurge
in the creation of the visible world ; but in all her
wanderings and estrangement, she felt a constant and

P He seems to have had an esoteric
and an exoteric ductrine. Hahn, p. 22,
on the authority of St. Ephrem. Com-
pare Hahn, Bardesanes Gnosticns Sj-

rormn primus Hymnologus. MucK
of this bears dose analogy to Valen*
tinianism.

76 MOTIVES OF THE THEOEISTS.

impassioned desire for perfect reunion with her first
consort. He assisted her in her course of purification
revealed to her his more perfect light, on which she
gazed with reanimating love ; and the second wedding
of these long estranged powers, in the presence of the
parent Deity, and all the .^lons and angels, formed the
subject of one of his most ardent and rapturous hymns.
With her, arose into the Pleroma those souls which
partook of her celestial nature, and are rescued, by the
descent of the Christ, according to the usual Gnostic the-
ory, from their iTnprisonment in the world of matter.

Yet all these theorists preserved some decent show
of respect for the Christian faith, and aimed at an
amicable reconciliation between their own wild theories
and the simpler Gospel. It is not improbable that
most of their leaders were actuated by the ambition of
uniting the higher and more intellectual votariea of the
older Paganism with the Christian community ; the one
by an accommodation with the Egyptian, the others,
with the S}Tifln or Chaldean, as, in later times, the
Alexandrian school, with the Grecian or Platonic Pagan-
bm ; and expected to conciliate all wlio would not
scruple to engraft the few tenets of Christianity which
they preserved inviolate upon their former belief. They
aspired to retain all that was dazzling, vast, and ima-
ginative in the cosmogonical systems of the East, aud
rejected all that was humiliating or ofifensive to the
common sentiment in Christianity. The Jewish cha-
racter of the Messiah gave way to a purely immaterial
notion of a celestial Redeemer ; the painful realities of
his life and death were softened off into fantastic appear-
ances ; they yet adopted as much of the Christian lan-
guage as they could mould to their views, and even
disguised or mitigated their contempt for, or animosity

'JHAP. V.

MARCION OF PONTUS.

to, Judaism. But Marcion of Pontus ^ disclaimed all these
conciliatory and temporising measures, either Mardonof
with Pagan, Jew, or evangelic Christian/ With ^*^°*°^
Marcion, all was hard, cold, implacable antagonism.
At once a severe rationalist and a strong enthusiast,
Marcion pressed the leading doctrine of the malignity
of matter to its extreme speculative and practical
consequences. His Creator, his providential Governor,
the God of the Jews, — weak, imperfect, enthralled in
matter, — was the opposite to the true God. The only
virtue of men was the most rigid and painful absti-
nence. Marcion's doctrine interdicted all animal food
but fish; it surpassed the most austere of the other
Christian communities in its proscription of the amuse-
ments and pleasures of life ; it rejected marriage, from
hostility to the Demiurge, whose kingdom it would not
increase by peopling it with new beings enslaved to
matter, to glut death with food." The fundamental
principle of Marcion's doctrine was unfolded in his
Antitheses, the Contrasts, in which he arrayed against
each other the Supreme God and the Demiurge the
God of the Jews, the Old and New Testament, the Law
and the Gospel.* The one was perfect, pure, beneficent,

4 Marcion was son of the Bishop of
Sinope.

' On Marcion, see chiefly the five
books of TertuUian adv. Marcion ; the
Historians of Heresies, Irenseus, i. 27 ;
Epiphanius, 42 ; Theodoret, i. 24 ; Ori-
gen contra Cels. ; Clem. Alex. iii. 425 ;
St. Ephrem, Orat 14, p. 468.

* q$ 8^ \oy^ ju^ $ov\6fAtvot rhy
KOfffihy rhv (hrh rov Atifiioipyov
yeyofieyhv trvfi.ie\it\fH)vv, kitix^^^^
ydfMov fio^Xoyrcu, — Clem. Alex.

Strom, iii. 3. firi^h ikyT€i<rdy€iy r^
KOfffi^ ^v<rrvxfl<Foyras ir4povst /lAijJJi
^xixopifytiv ry Bayar^ rp6<pi\y, Ch.
vi.

' Opus ex contrarietatum opposi*
tionibus, Antitheses, cognominatum,
et ad separationem legis et evangelii
coactum; qua duos Deos dividens,
proinde diversos, alterum alteiius
instinimenti vel qnod magis est ustii
dioere, testamenti ut exinde evange-
lic quoqne secundum Antitheses ere*

DOCTKISES OF MARCION.

paaaionleaa; the other, though not unjoBt by nature, I
infeeted by matter, — subject to all the pnssiona of^
man, — cruel, changeable ; the New Testament, espe-
cially, as remodelled by Marcion, was holy, wise, ami-
able ; the Old Testament, the Law, barbarous, inhuman,
contradictory, aud detestable. On the plundering of
the Egyptians, on the massacre of the Canaanites, on
every metaphor which ascribed the actions and senti-
ments of men to the Deity, Marcion enlarged with
contemptuous superiority and contrasted it with the
tone of the Gospel. It was to rescue mankind fiom
the tyranny of this inferior and hostile deity, that the
Supreme manifested himself in Jesus Christ. This i
manifestation took place by his sudden appearance in
the synagogue in Capernaum ; for Marcion swept away
with remorseless hand all the earlier incidents in the
Gospels. But the Messiah which was revealed in Christ |
was directly the opposite to that announced by the I
Prophets of the Jews, and of their God. He made no '
conquests ; he was not the Immfluuel ; he was not the '
son of David ; he came not to restore the temporal
kingdom of Israel. His doctrines were equally oj^
posed : he demanded not an eye for an eye, or a tooth
for a tooth ; but where one smote the right cheek, to
tm-n the other. He demanded no sacrifices but that of
the pure heart; be enjoined not the sensual and in- '
decent practice of multiplying the species ; he pro-
scribed marriage. The God of the Jews, trembling for
his authority, anned himself against the celestial in-
vader of his territory ; he succeeded, in the geeming I

Uhap.Y.

THE GOSPEL OF MAICION.

ezBCotion of Christ irpoa the crosBy who, by his death,
rescued the souls of the tnie belieTeis from the bondage
of the Law ; jdesoended to the lower regions^ where he
reseaed, Dot the jhohs and holy patriarchs, Abel, Enoch,
Noah, Jacob, Moses, David, or Solomon, — ^these were
the adhernits of the Demimge or material creator, —
bnt his implacable enemies, sach as Cain and flsaa.
After the ascension of the Bedeemer to heayen, the God
of the Jews was to rest(M^ his subjects to their native
land; and his temporal reign was to commence over his
ffdthM bnt inferior subjects."

The Gospel of Marcion was that of St Luke, adapted,
by many omissions, and some alterations, to his theory.
Every allusion to, -every metaphor from, marriage was
carefaUy erased, and every passage amended or rejected
which could in any way implicate the pure deity with
the material world.*

" I adhere to this somewhat harsher
and less charitable summary of Mar-
cionism. The milder view of Neauder,
in which he had mitigated or softened
off its harder tones, has been carried
by Bonsen almost to admiration. I
cannot think that a raei'e exa^oration
of the Anti-Judaizing Pauline doc-
trines could have goaded even Tertul-
lian to such a fury of orthodox hatred.
I am well aware that contemporaiy
statements, when the writers are full
of the passions of their times, are the
worst authorities. But Tertullian
wrote with the Antitheses, pi-obably
with Marcion's Gospel, before him.
The fragment of Hippolytus throws no
light on the question. Of all the posi-
tive paradoxes of my deai* fiiend, I
confess that none seems to me so en-
tirely boaelees as his ascription of the

Epistle to Diognetus, that model of
pure, simple, reasonable Christianity,
which stands alone in that barren and
fimtastic age, to the youth of Marcion.
I cannot conceive the writer of that
Epistle ever having become the author
of the Antitheses. But one who has
really made such discoveries, as Bunsen
has in eaily Christian literature, may
be indulged in some fancies,

' This Gospel has been put to<
gether, according to the various
authorities, especially Tertullian, by
M. Hahn. It is reprinted in the
Codex Apocrjrphus Novi Testament!,
by Thilo, of which one volume only
has appeared. Among the remarkable
alterations of the Gospels which most
strongly characterise his system, wni
that of the text so beautifully descrip*
tive of the providence of God, — which

80 THE CABPOCBATlANs, Boos 11

These were the chief of the Gnostic sects ; bat they
v»rtBUoior spread out into almost infinitely diversified
snuiiitiBni. gubdiTisions, distinguished by some peculiar
tenet or usage. The Carpocratians were avowed Ecieo
tics ; they worshipped, as benefactors of tlie human race,
the images of Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle,
and Jesua Christ, as well as that of their own founder.
Hy this school were received, possibly were invented)
many of the astrologic or theurgic books attributed to
Zoroaster and other ancient sages. The Jewish Scrip-
tures were the works of inferior anwela ; of the Christian,
they received only the Gospel of St. Matthew. The
anpreme, nnknown, uncreated Deity, was the Monad ;
the visible world was the creation, the domain of inferior
beings. But the Carpocratian system was much sim-
pler, and, in some respects, rejecting generally the
eystem of .Skins or Emanations, approached much nearer
to Christianity than those of most of the other Gnostics.
The contest of Jesus Christ, who was the son of Joseph,
according to their system, was a purely moral one.
Theu- scheme revived the Oriental notion of the pre-
existence of the soul. The soid of Jeans had a clearer
and more distinct reminiscence of the original know-
ledge (the Gnosis) and wisdom of their celestial state;
and by communicating these notions to mankind, ele-
vated them to the same superiority over the mundane
deities. This perfection consisted in faith and charity,
perhaps likewise in the ecstatic contemplation of the

"niBkrthhfsininto

hJBf on

IliBevil

might not deHIp hiniMlf with Iht tul-

and the gouJ, ami tea

delhm

D dnttie

ministralioD of their blessings. Tsr-*

jUEt ind th? utijimt.

Mat

T. 4S.

tull. adr. Marc. iv. 17. The eiqut-

The saa agd tl.r rai

l,t)i«i>e

iDntei-inl

mW Paisble of the Prodigal Son wu

demenl., wero Ihe s

ay<«on

V of (he

thrown out. The ftnat at the ead

Gbd of nmltcL: ihe

Siipitn

e [tpily

iicmuiits for its proscription.

CHAP. V. THE OPHITES. 81

Monad. EYeiything except faith and charity, — all good
worksy all observances of human laws, which were esta-
blished by mundane authority, — were exterior, and
more than indifferent Hence, they were accused of
recommending a community of property, and of women,
— ^inferences which would be drawn from their avowed
contempt for all human laws. They were accused,
probably without justice, of following out these specula-
tive opinions into practice. Of all heretics, none have
borne a worse name than the followers of Carpocrates
and his son and successor, Epiphanes/

The Ophites ' are, perhaps, the most perplexing of all
these sects. It is difficult to ascertain whether the
Serpent from which they took or received their name
was a good or an evil spirit — the Agatho-daemon of the
Egyptian mythology, or the Serpent of the Jewish and
other Oriental schemes. With them, a quaternion seems
to have issued from the primal Being, the Abyss, who
dwelt alone with his Ennoia, or Thought. These were
Christ and Sophia Achamoth, the Spirit and Chaos.
The former of each of these powers was perfect, the
latter imperfect. Sophia Achamoth, departing from
the primal source of purity, formed laldabaoth, the

^ I think that we may collect from regal privilege of acting as they pleased ;
Clement of Alexandria, that the com- ' some, the Antitactse, thought it right
mnnitj of women, in the Carpocratian ' to break the Seventh Commandment,
system, was that of Plato. Clement | because it was uttered by the evil
insinnates that it was carried into I Demiui^e. But these were obscure
practice. Strom, iii. c. 2. According ; sects, and possibly their adversaries
to Clement, the dififerent sects, or : drew these conclusions for them from
sects of sects, justified their immo- i their doctrines. Strom. 1. iii.
ralititt on different pleas. Some, the ; * Mosheim, p. 399, who wrote a
Prodician Gnostics, considered public < particular dissertation on the Ophitsfr,
pnwtitution a mystic commum'on ; • of which he distinguished two sects, a
others, that all children of the primary ! Jewish and a Christiao.
or good Deity might exercise their j

VOL. II. O

OEIENTAL GNOSTICISM.

Book II.

Prince of Darkness, the Demiurge, an inferior, but not
directly malignant, being — ^the Satan, or Samael, or
Michael. The tutelar angel of the Jews was Ophis, the
Serpent — a reflection of laldabaoth. With others, the
Serpent was the sjrmbol of Christ himself ; * and hence
the profound abhorrence with which this obscure sect
was beheld by the more orthodox Chi-istians. In other
respects, their opinions appear to have approximated
more nearly to the common Gnostic form. At the
intercession of Sophia, Christ descended on the man
Jesus, to rescue the souls of men from the firry of the
Demiurge, who had imprisoned them in matter : they
ascended through the realm of the seven planetary
angels.**

* M. Matter conjectured that they
had derived the notion of the beneficent
serpent, the emblem or symbol of
Christ, from the bitizen serpent in the
wilderness. Perhaps it was the Egyp-
tian Agatho-dsemon. M. Matter's
notion was right to a ceiiain extent as
to one sect of the Ophites, the Peratse.
See Philosophumena, p. 133.

'" On the Ophites alone, the Refuta-
tion of all Heresies promises to enlarge
our knowledge; to me that promise
has ended, on examination, in utter
disappointment; it is darkness dark-
ened, confusion worse confounded.
Hippolytus devotes a whole book,
which we have neaiiy perfect, to the
tenets of four sects of Ophites. None
of them agrees with what has been
gathered from othei' sources, as ap-
peal's from the text, which I leave un-
altered. These sects are, the Naassenes,
the Peratse, the Sethians, the Jus-
tinians. Through all these run some
common notions, the blending of in-

tellectual, physical, moral conceptions ;
their perpetual impersonation ; the
evolution of the ci*eative mind; the
imprisonment of mind in matter, its
emancipation from its bondage; the
forcible blending up of the Christian
tenets concerning Christ and the Holy
Ghost with these repugnant and dis-
cordant schemes. (The Serpent ap-
peal's in all the four systems, but with
a different character and office.) All
delight in their triple form of thought,
the intellectual (the vo€pi>v\ the life
(the i^vx^K^v), tiie brute matter (the
XoiKhv).

The Naassenes are so called from
the Hebrew word Nahash, a serpent ;
and from Nahash they strangely de-
rived the Greek ya6Sf a temple.
Temples being universally raised
throughout the world, showed the
universality of Serpent-worship. With
them the Serpent is the principle of
moisture (i^ ^f»h) as with Thales th«
Milesian, the origin and source of /UI

OBAV.V.

ORIENTAL GNOSTICISM.

Snch, in its leading branches, was the Gnosticism of
the East, which rivalled the more genuine Christianity,
if not in the number of its converts, in the activity with
which it was disseminated. It arose simultaneously or

things, rheir great chai-acteristic is
the ooDstant labour to identify Chris-
tianity with the Secret of all the Pagan
Mysteries, Phrygian, Samothracian,
Eleasinian. There is a wild confusion
of the orgiastic superstition which pre-
vailed so widely throi^h the Koman
world, the worship of Cybele, with
that of Christ.

The Peratae were distinguished (they
were Orientals) by a predominant in-
fusion of astrological notions. Witli
them the Sei-pent was a sort of Inter-
mediate Being, the Son, the Word,
between the Father, the primal Monad,
and Matter. Ka64(€Tai oZv fi4<ros
Tfis 0Xijs jcal TOW varphs 6 vldst ^

X^OS, 6 6<piS &6l KlVO^fltVOS TTphs

iuchn\Tov rhv Trarepa ical KivovfievTiv

With the Sethians the Sei-pent was
the violent wind, which came out of
darkness, the fii-stborn of the waters,
and the generating principle of all
things, specially of man. p. 142.

With the Justinians (this sect, of
coarse, has no relation with Justin
Martyr) the Serpent approaches more
nearly to his function in the beginning
of the book of Genesis. But the
fieduction of Eve is in a coarser and
grosser form (p. 155). The Serpent
is also the Tempter of our Lord in
the wilderness, p. 157.

I must say that throughout this book
ihere is too much of Hippolytus, of
fh? writer of the third century, proud
?f Us knowledge of the Greek religi<m

and the Greek philosophy. Ail these
Ophites he would assume to be the
earliest Gnostics (they first took the
name), and so almost reaching up to
the Apostolic times. But it is utterly
incredible that there should have
existed at that time any set of men
who were equally familiar with the
Old and New Testaments and the
Greek poets ; who appealed to the Pen-
tateuch and the Gospels, and to Homer,
Pindar, Anacreon; who had antici-
pated the identification of Christianity
with the Secret of the Pagan Mysteries,
of which they might almost seem to
be the Hierophants; who had their
mystic hymns in which the new and
the old, the Oriental, and Greek and
Christian notions, wei'e blended and
confused. Hif^lytus appeals to, cites
their writings, but of the age of those
writings, I must presume to doubt bis
critical discernment.

Finally, I cannot think these smaller
sects of any importance in Christian
history, further than as testifying to
that general fermentation of thought,
that appetency for truth, that distress-
ing and exciting want of satisfaction for
the heart and soul and intellect of
man, which Christianity found and
stimulated to the utmost ; from which
it suffered to a certain extent, but
from which it emerged, if not in all
its primal purity, with unsubdued
energy and force; by which it sab>
jugated the world.

GSOSTICISM NOT POPCLAE. Book O,

suceesaiTely in all the great centres of Christianity, in
Alexandria, in Antiocb, in Edessa, in Ephesus. Many
of its teachers — Valentinns, Marcion, and their fol-
lowers — found their way to Eome. Their progress was
especially among the higher and more opulent ; and, in
their lofty pretensions, they claimed a superiority over
the humbler Christianity of tlie vulgar. But, for this very
niioiOctipn reason. Gnosticism, in itself, waa diametrically
iiutpjpniw. opposite to the true Christian spuit: instead
of being popular and universal, it was select and exclu-
sive. It was another, in one respect a higher, form of
Judaism, inasmuch as it did not rest its exclusiveuesB
on the title of birth, but on especial knowledge (gnosis))
vouchsafed only to the enlightened and inwardly de-
signated few. It was the establoBlunent of the Chrifr
tians as a kind of religious privileged order, a theo
philosophic aristocracy, whose esoteric doctrines soared
far above the grasp and comprehension of the vulgar.*
It was a philosophy rather than a religion ; at least Uie
philosophic or speculative part would soon have pr&-
dominated over the spiritual. They affected a profound
and awful mystery; they admitted their disciples, m
general, by slow and regular gradations. Gnostic Chrift-
tianity, therefore, might have been a formidable anta-
gonist to the prevailing philosophy of the times, but it
would never have extirpated an ancient and deeply--
rooted religion ; it might have drained the schools of
their hearers, but it never would have changed the tem-
]iles into solitudes. It would have afiected only the-
surface of society: it did not begin to work upward'

• Tcrtnllisu taantsthcVmleDtinuns I dkaat qui occultaDt."
— "nibil magu cunut qnaiii occul- VbIbiL
Ui-e quill pi-Edimiit, si tamea prs- |

CSbap. V. GNOSTICISM FRIENDLY TO PAGANISM. 85

from, its depths, nor did it penetrate to that strong
under-current of popular feeling and opinion which
alone operates a profound and lasting change in the
moral sentiments of mankind.

With regard to Paganism, the Gnostics are accused
of a compromising and conciliatory spirit, conciiuitory
totally aUen to that of primitive Christianity. Paganism.
They affected the haughty indifference of the philoso-
phers of their own day, or the Brahmins of India, to the
¥iilgar idolatry; scrupled not at a contemptuous con-
fomity witii the established worship ; attended the rite«
and the festivals of the Heathen ; partook of meats
offered in sacrifioe, and, secure in their own intellectual
or spiritual purity, conceived that no stain could cleave
to tJieir uninfected spirits from this which, to most
Christians, appeared a treasonable surrender of the vital
principles of the faith.

This criminal compliance of the Gnostics, no doubt,
countenanced and darkened those charges of unbridled
licentiousness of manners with which they are almost
indiscriminately assailed by the early Fathers^ Those
dark and incredible accusations of midnight meetings,
where all the restraints of shame and of nature were
thrown off, which Pagan hostility brought against the
general body of the Christians, were reiterated by the
Christians against these sects, whose principles were
those of the sternest and most rigid austerity. They
are accused of openly preaching the indifference of
human action. The material nature of man was so
essentially evil and malignant, that there was no neces-
sity, as there could be no advantage, in attempting to
correct its inveterate propensities. While, therefore,
that nature might pursue, uncontrolled, its own innate

and inalienable propensities, the serene and uiicontnini*
(lated spirit of those, at least, who wore enlightened by
the divine ray, might remaon aloof, either nnconsciuuB
of, or, at least, unimrticipant in, the aberrations of its
grovelliog consort. Such general charges, it is equally
unjnst to believe, and impossible to refute. The dreamy
indoleuce of mysticiam ia not unlikely to degenerate
into voluptuous excess. The e.xcitement of mental, has
often a strong effect on bodily, emotion. The party of
the Gnostics may have coutained many whose passions
were too strong for their principles, or who may have
made their principles the slaves of tiieir passiona;
but Christian Charity and sober historical criticism
concur in rejecting these general accnsatiooa. Tha
Gnostics were, mostly, imaginative, rather than practical,
fanatics ; they indulged a mental, rather than corporeal,
licence. The Carpocratians have been exposed to the
moat obloquy. But, even in their case, the charitable
doubts of dispassionate historical criticism are justified
by those of an ancient writer, who declares his disbelief
of any irreligious, lawless, or forbidden practices among
these sectaries.^

It was the reaction, as it were, of Gnosticism, that
produced the last important modification of Christiftnity,
during the second century, the Montanism of Phrygia.
But we have, at present, proceeded iu our relation of
the contest between Orientalism and Christianity so far

** Kaifi t^iifTpdirirt

fii5tr«9, Tho^ used a coun

p. But All tliia mu£^ 1 tJiiiik,
}tpted with much rteervatioD, H

Chap. V. *rHE MONTANISM OP PHRYGIA. 87

beyond the period to which we conducted the contest
with Paganism, that we reascend at once to the com-
mencement of the second century. Montanism, however
thus remotely connected with Gnosticism, stands alone
and independent as a new aberration from the primitive '
Christianity, and will demand our attention in its in-
fluence upon one of the most distinguished and effective
of the early Christian writei*s.

gg SECOND CEKTURY OF CHRISTIANITY, Book II

CHAPTER VI.

Ghmtianity during the prosperous period of the Boman Empire.

With the second century of Christianity commenced
R^E». the reiga of auotherra«e of Emperors. Trajan,
SmmeS^ Hadrian, and the Antonines, were men of larger
SSSd L?^ minds, more capable of embracing the vast em-
tury. pjpg^ Q^^ Qf taking a wide and comprehensive

survey of the interests, the manners, and the opinions
of the various orders and races of men which reposed
under the shadow of the Boman sway. They were not,
as the first Caesars, monarchs of Home, governing the
other parts of the world as dependent provinces ; but /
sovereigns of the Western World, which had gradually i
coalesced into one majestic and harmonious system. I
Under the military dominion of Trajan, the Empire ap-vl
peared to reassume the strengtU and enterprise of the /f>
conquering Republic : he had invested the whole frontie/ 1
with a defence more solid and durable than the strongeilb
line of fortresses, or the most impregnable wall — ^the
terror of the Roman arms, and the awe of Roman dis-
cipline. If the more prudent Hadrian withdrew the
advanced boundaries of the empire, it seemed in the
consciousness of strength, disdaining the occupation ot
wild and savage districts, which rather belonged to the
vet unreclaimed realm of barbarism, than were fit to be
incorporated in the dominion of civilisation. Even in
the East, the Euphrates appeared to be a boundary
traced by nature for the dominion of Rome. Hadrian

Chap. VI,

MODERATION OP THE EMPERORS.

(

was the first emperor who directed his attention to the
general internal affairs of the whole population of ther \
empire. The spirit of jurisprudence prevailed during
the reign of the Antonines ; and the -main object of the
ruling powers seemed to be the uniting under one gene-
ral system of law the various members of the great /
political confederacy. Thus, each contributed to the /
apparent union and durability of the social edifice. This /
period has been considered by many able writers, a kind
of golden age of human happiness.* What, then, was
the effect of Christianity on the general character of the
times; and how far were the Christian communities
excluded from the general felicity ?

It was impossible that the rapid and universal pro-
gress of a new religion should escape the notice of minds
^ so occupied with the internal as well as the external
affairs of the whole empire. But it so happened (the
Christian will adnlire in this singular concurrence of
circumstances the overruling power of a beneficent
Deity) that the moderation and humanity of the Em-
perors stepped in, as it were, to allay at this particular
crisis the dangers of a general and inevitable collision

* This theoiy is most ably deve-
loped hy Hegewisch. See the Transla-
tion of his Essay, by M. Sol vet. Paris,
1 834. The silence of history, that too
fiuthful record in general of the folly
and misery, of the wars and devastating
conquests of mankind, may seem a fall
testimony to the happiness of the sera ;
bat this silence is perhaps mainly due
to other causes. In &ct, there is, pro-
t)erly speaking, no history of the times ;
^nd even if there were what is ordi-
Ihurily received as history, it might
throw but dim light on tiie condition

of the masses of mankind throughout
the vast empire. Peace was un-
doubtedly in itself a blessing; but how
much oppression, t3rranny of the go-
vernment over all, of class over class,
may be hid under the smooth sui-face
of peace 1 The vast, comprehensive,
and age-enduring fabric of Roman
jurisprudence, which began to rise at
this time, bears nobler witness to the
wisdom of the rulers, and to the disti*i-
butiou of equal justice, that best guard
and guarantee of human happiness,
over the whole empire*

with the temporal government. Christianity itself was
cbancirrs of j"^ ^ ^^"■^ Btate of advancement in which,
Snm^^JTio thongh it had begun to threaten, and even to
S^qfo?™*' ™ake most alarming encroachments on the
QiiibtiiuiLij. estabhshed Polytheism, it had not so com-
pletely divided the whole race of mankind, as to force
the heads of the Polytheistic party, the oiHcial conser-
vators of the existing order of things, to take violent
and decisive meitsures for its suppresaion. The temples,
though, perhaps, becoming less crowded, were in fen
places deserted ; the alarm, though, perhaps, in many
towns it waa deeply brooding in the minda of the priest-
hood, and of those connected by zeal or by interest mth
the maintenance of Paganism, was not so profound or so
general, as imperiously to require the interposition of
the civil authorities. Tlie milder or more indifferent
character of the Emperor had free scope to mitigate or
to arrest the arm of persecution. The danger was not
80 pressing but that it migiit be averted : that which
had arisen thus suddenly, and unexpectedly (so little
were the wisest probably aware of the real nature of the
revolution working in the minds of men) might die
away with as much rapidity. Under an Emperor, in-
deed, who should have united the vigour of a Trajan
and the political forethought of a Hadrian with the
sanguinary relentlessness of a Nero, Christianity would
have had to pass a tremendous ordeal. Now, however,
the collision of the new rehgion with the civil power
was only occasional, and, as it were, fortuitous ; and in
these occasional conflicts with the ruling powers, we
constantly appear to trace the character of the reigning
sovereign.

Of these emperors, Trajan possessed the most powerM
and vigorous mind — a consummate general, a humane

CHAP. VI. HADBIAN — ANTONINUS PIUS. 91

but active ruler: Hadrian was the profoundest states-
mail) the Antonines the best men. The con-
duct ot Traian was that of a military sove- perorftom

A.D 98 to 11&

reign, whose natural disposition was tempered
with humanity — prompt, decisive, never unnecessarily
prodigal of blood, but careless of human life if it ap-
peared to stand in the way of any important design, or
to hazard that paramount object of the government, the
public peace. Hadrian was inclined to a more

. . , . rrn 1 -rk Hadrian Em-

temponsms: policy. The more the Roman perorfrom
Empire was contemplated as a whole, the more
the coexistence of multifiirious religions might appear
compatible with the general peace. Christianity might,
in the end, be no more dangerous than the other foreign
religions, which had flowed, and were still flowing in,
fix)m the East. The temples of Isis had arisen through-
out the empire, but those of Jupiter or Apollo had not
lost their votaries r the Eastern mysteries, the Phrygian,
at a later period the Mithriac, had mingled, very little
to their prejudice, with the general mass of the prevailing
superstitions. The last characteristic of Christianity
which would be distinctly understood, was its invasive
and uncompromising spirit. The elder Ante- Antoninus
ninus may have pursued- from mildness of ^^Jto^'
character the course adopted by Hadrian from "^•
policy. The change which took place during the reign
of Marcus AureKus may be attributed to the circum-
stances of the time ; though the pride of philosophy, as
well as the established religion, might begin to take th#
alarm.

Christianity had probably spread with partial ana
very unequal success in different quarters : its converts
oore in various cities or districts a very different propor-
tion to the rest of the population. Nowhere, perhaps,

92 BirHTNIA — LETTEK OF PLINY. Book a

had it advanced with greater rapidity than in the nortb-
ern provinces of Asia Minor, where the inhabitants
were of very mingled descent, neither pnrely Greek,
nor essentially Asiatic, with a considerable proportion
of Jewish colonists, cliiefly of Babylonian or Syrian, not
ChnBiinniij of Palestinian origin. It is here, in the pro-
«i4 0iei-j- vince of Bithyiiia, that Polytheism first dis-
vinoM. covered the deadly enemy which was nnder-
iii ' mining her authority. It was here that the
first cry of distre^ was ottered; and complaints of
deserted temples and less frequent sacrificea were brought
before the tribimal of the government The memorable
correspondence between Pliny and Trajan is the most
valuable record of the early Christian history during
this period,'' It represents to us Paganism already
claiming the alliance of power to maintain its decaying
ioflueDce ; ChriBtianity proceeding in its silent conreej
imperfectly understood by a wise and polite Pagan, yet
still with nothing to offend his moral judgement, except
its contumacious repugnance to the common usages of
society. This contumacy, nevertheless, according to the
recognised principle of passive obedience to the laws of
the Empire, was deserving of the severest punishment.
Letter of 'Ifa^ appeal of Pliny to the supreme authority
puaj. j-jjj, ad\-ice as to the course to be pursued with
these new, and, in most respects, harmless delmqueuts,
unquestionably implies that no general practice had yet

ANSWER OF TEAJAN. 93

ieen laid down to guide the provincial governors in
Buch emergencies." The answer of Trajan is Answer or
characterised by a spirit of moderation. It ^"^'
betrays humane anxiety to allow all such offenders
as were not forced uoder the cogiuBance of the pobhc
tribimals, to elude persecution. Nevertheless it dis-
tinctly intimates, that by some existing law, or by the
ordinary power of the proviucial governor, the Chris-
tiaus were amenable to the severest penalties, to torture,
and even to capital punishment. Such punishment had
already been inflicted by PUny ; as Goveruor he had
been forced to interfere by accusations lodged before
his tribunaL An anonymous libel, or impeachment,
had denoimced numbers of persons, some of whom alto-
gether disclaimed, otliers declared that they had re-
nounced Christianity. With that uuthinking barbarity
with which id those times euch punishments were in-
flicted on persons in inferior station, two servants,
females — it is possible they were deaconesses — were put
to the torture, to ascertain the truth of the vulgar accu-
sations against the ChristiauB. On their evidence, Pliny
could detect nothing further than a " culpable and ex-
travagant superstition." "^ The only facts which he could
discover were, that they had a custom of meeting toge-
ther before daylight, aud singing a hymn to Christ as
-God. They were bound together by no unlawful sacra-
ment, but only under mutual obligation not to commit
theft, robbeiy, adultery, or fraud. They met a second
time in the day, and partook together of food, but that
of a perfectly innocent kind. The test of guilt to which

unprcoedeuial.
I '' FiBVa et immodlciiBuperatilJ

EXECUTIONS OEDEKED BY TLIXT. Eocwil

he submitted the more ohstinate delmquents, was adora-
tion before the statues of the Gods and of the Emperor,
and the malediction of Chriat. Those who refused he
ordered to be led out to execution." Such was the sum-
mary pi-ocees of the Roman Governor ; and the appro-
bation of the Emperor clearly shows that he had not
exceeded the recognised limits of his authority. Neither
Trajan nor the senate had before this issued any editrt
on the subject. The rescript to Pliny invested him with
no new powers; it merely advised him, as he had done,
to use his actual powers with discretion,' neither to
encourage the denunciation of such criminals, nor to
proceed without fair and unquestionable evidence. The
system of anonymous delation, by which private malice
might wreak itself, by false or by unnecessary cliarges,
upon its enemies, Trajan reprobates in that generous
spirit with which the wiser and more virtuous emperora
cousfantly repressed that most di^aceful iniquity of
the times,^ But it is manifest, from the esecntions
ordered by Pliny and sanctioned by the approbation of
the Emperor, that Christianity was already an offence
amenable to capital punishment," and this, either under
some existing statute, under the common law of the
Empire which invested the provincial governor with the
arbitrary power of life and death, or lastly, what in this
instance cannot have been the case, the summum impe-
rium of the Emperor.' WhQe then in the individual the

wem sent for trisl

^ Rome. "AW

quift ciTes Romani ei

mnt, aiaaUrl \o

1 This rescript or

WJWM of Tnijm,

approving of the n

Biiner in wbieU

Chap. VI. POWER OF PROVINCIAL GOVERNORS.

profession of Christianity might thus, by the summary
sentence of the governor and the tacit approbation of
the Emperor, be treated as a capital offence, and the
provincial governor might appoint the measure and the
extent of the punishment, all public assemblies for the
purpose of new and unauthorised worship might likewise
be suppressed by the magistrate ; for the police of the
Empire always looked with the utmost jealousy on all
associations not recognised by the law ; and resistance
to such a mandate would call down, or the secret hold-
ing of such meetings after their prohibition would incur,
any penalty ^hich the conservator of public order
might think proper to inflict upon the delinquent. Such
then was the general position of the Christians with the
ruL'ng authorities. They were guilty of a crime against
the state, by introducing a new and unauthorised reli-
gion, or by holding assemblages contrary to the internal
regulations of the Empire. But the extent to which the
law v/ould be enforced against them — ^how far Chris-
tianity would be distinguished from Judaism and other
foreign religions, which were permitted the free esta-
blishment of their rites — with how much greater jealousy
their secret assemblies would be watched than those of
other mysteries and esoteric religions — all this would
depend upon the milder or more rigid character of the
governor, and the willingness or reluctance of their
fellow-citizens to arraign them before the tribunal of
the magistrates. This in turn would depend on the

bis conduct, is converted by Mosheim
into a new law, which from that time
became one of the statutes of the Em-
pire. ** Hsec Trajan i lex inter publicas
Imperii sanctiones relata" (p. 234).
Trajan's words ezpressly%leclare that

no certain rule of proceeding can be
laid down, and leave almost the whole
question to the discretion of the ma-
gistrate. ** Neque enim in universura
aliquid, quod quasi oertam forman
habet, conbtitui potest." Tnij. ad Plin

96 JEWS KOT AVERSE TO THEATEES. Book H, ■

circiimBtances of the place and the time ; on the capriee"
of their enemieB; on their own disuretioTi ; on their
success and the apprehensions and jealousies of their
opponents. In general, so long as they made no visible
impression upon society, so long as their absence from
the religions rites of the city or district, or even irom
the games and theatrical eshibitiona which were essen-
tial parts of the existing Polytheism, caused no sensible
diminution in the eoncoursG of the worshippers, their
unsocial and self-secluding disposition would be treated
with contempt and pity ratiier than with animosity.
The internal decay of the spirit of Polytheism had little
eftect on its outward splendour. The philosophic party,
who despised the popular faith, were secure in their raiik
or in their decent conformity to the public ceremoniaL
The t.hwjr y gf all the systems of philosophy was to
avoid unnecessary collision with the popular religious
sentiment : their superiority to the vulgar was flattered,
rather than offended, by the adherence of the latter to
their native superstitions. In the publio exhibitions,
the followers of all other foreign religions met, as on a
Theja-snoi common ground. In the theatre or the hip-
tbMWi^ podrome, the worshipper of Isis or of Mithra
juonMnKim. jnijigieii with the mass of those who still ad-
hered to Bacchus or to Jupiter. Even the Jews, ia
many parts, at least at a later period, in some instances
at the present, betrayed no aversion to the popular
games or amusements. Though, in Palestbe, the elder
Herod had met with a sullen and intractable resistance
in the religious body of the people against his attempt
to introduce Gentile and idolatrous games into the Holy

Land, yet it

accoramodati
stood high

probable that the foreign Jews were more
g. A Jewish player, named Aliturus,
the favour of Nero ; nor does it appear

CHAP. rr. CHKISTIANS ABSTAIN FROM THEM. 97

that he had abandoned his religion. He was still con-
nected with his own race ; and some of the priesthood
did not disdain to owe their acquittal, on certain
charges on which they had been sent prisoners to
Borne, to the actor's interest with the Emperor or with
the ruling favourite Poppsea. After the Jewish war,
multitudes of the prisoners were forced to exhibit them-
selves as gladiators; and at a later period, the con-
fluence of the Alexandrian Jews to the theatres, where
they equalled in numbers the Pasran spec- christians

. , ,., I* Ai • rni abstain from

tators, endangered the peace oi the city. The them.
Christians alone stood aloof from exhibitions which, in
their higher and nobler forms, arose out of, and were
closely connected with, the Heathen religion; were
performed on days sacred to the deities; introduced
the deities upon the stage ; and, in short, were among
the principal means of maintaining in the public mind
its reverence for the old mythological fables. The
sanguinary diversions of the arena, and the licentious
voluptuousness of some of the other exhibitions, were no
less oflensive to their humanity and to their modesty
than those more strictly religious to their piety. Still,
so long as they were comparatively few in number, and
did not sensibly diminish the concourse to these scenes
of public enjoyment, they would be rather exposed to
individual acts of vexatious interference, of ridicule, or
contempt, than become the victims of a general hostile
feeling: their absence would not be resented as an
insult upon the public, nor as an act of punishable dis-
respect against the local or more widely worshipped
deity to whose honour the games were dedicated. The
time at which they would be in the greatest danger
from what would be thought their suspicious or disloyal
refusal to join in the public renoicings, would be precisely

VOL. II. H

DAflGEH OF POLITICAL HEJOICINGS.

that which has b**en conjectured with much iDgennity
and probability to have been the occasion of their being
thus committed with the popular sentiment and with
the government — the celebration of the birtliday or
iiuiBoroii the accession of the Emperor." With the eere-
'^m^ "^ monial of those days, even if, as may have been
rejoicinei. jjjg ^^^g^ jjjg actual adoration of the statue of
the Emperor was not an ordinary part of the ritual,
much which was strictly idolatrous would be mingled
dp ; and the ordinary excuse of the Christians to such
charges of disaffection, that they prayed with the utmost
fervour for the welfare of the Emperor, would not be
admitted, either by the sincere attachment of the
people and of the government to a virtuous, or their
abject and adulatory celebration of a cruel and tyranni-
cal, Emperor.

Tliis crisis in the fate of Christiaiiity— thia transitiou
from safe and despised obscurity to dangerous and
obnoxious importance — would of course depend on the
comparative rapidity of its progress in different quarters.
In Bithynia, the province of Pliny, it had attained that
height in little more than seventy years after the death
of Christ. Though a humane and enlightened govern-
ment might still endeavour to close its eyes upon its
multiplying numbers and expanding influence, the keener
sight of jealous interest, of rivalry in the command of
the popular mind, and of mortified pride, already anti-
cipated the time when this i'ormidable antagonist might
balance, might at length overweigh, the failing powers

* The conjecture of Pagi. thnt (he

(mthere«.lllorll2).

»«t«mely

attentim at the goyornment was

prohsbli;. Pogi quDt«

no pOSBIgH

directed to the Chrirtiaoa by their

of Plinjr on the subject

of th«Nge-

etuidiag aloof from the festivjJs which

neral rejoidogs. Critic*

inBiroD. '

100.

f OLITICAl STATE OP THE EAST. 99

' Polytlieism, Under a less candid governor thaii
Pliny, and an Emperor less hmnane and dispassionate
Plihaii Trajan, the exterminating sword of persecution
I would have been let loose, and a relentless and sys-
tematic edict for the suppression of Christianity would
have hunted down its followers in every quarter of the
empire,

Not only the wisdom and humanity of Trajan, but
the military character of his reign, would tend to divert
his attention from that which belonged rather to the
internal administration of the empire. It is pmbannooa-
(ar from impossible, though the conjecture ^SraiOm"
is not countenanced by any allusion in the 1^'ih'f m»
despatch of Pliny, that the measures adopted "f""'^'-
against the Christians were not entirely unconnected
with the political state of the East, The Boman Em-
pire, in the Mesopotaraian province, was held on a
precarious tenure ; the Parthian Idngdom had acquired
new vigour and energy, and, during great part of his
reign, the slate of the East must have occupied the
active mind of Trajan. The Jewish population of Baby-
lonia and the adjacent provinces was of no incousider-
able importance in the impending contest- There is
strong ground for supposing that the last insurrection of
the Jews, under Hadrian, was connected with a rising of
their brethren in Mesopotamia, no doubt secretly, if not
openly, fomented by the intrigues, and depending on the
support, of the king of Parthia. This was at a con-
siderably later period ; yet, during the earlier part of
the reign of Trajan, the insurrection had already com-
menced in Egypt and in Cyrene, and in the island of
Cyprus, and no sooner were the troops of Trajan engaged
on the eastern irontier, towarda the close of his reign,
) Jews rose up in all these provinces, and wero

too JEWISH REBELLION. Book O. 1

not subdued till after they had perpetrated and endured
the most terrific massacres." Throughout the Eastern
wars of Trajan this spirit was most hkelj- known to be
fermenting in the minds of the whole Jewish population,
not only in the insurgent districts, but in Palestine and
other parts of the empire. The whole race, which
occupied in such vast numbers the conterminous regions,
would be watched, therefore, with hostile jealousy by
the Roman governors, already prejudiced against their
unruly and ungovernable character, and awakened to
more than ordinary vigilance by the disturbed aspect of
the times. The Christians stood in a singular and am-
biguous position between the Jewish and Pagan popu-
lation ; many of them probably descended from, and
connected with, the Jews. Their general peaceful
habita and orderly conduct would deserve the protection
of a parental government ; stiil their intractable and per-
severing resistance to the rehgious institutions of the
Empu-e might throw some suspicion on the sincerity of
their civil obedience. The unusnal assertion of religious,
might be too closely allied wth that of political, inde-
pendence. At all events, the dubious and menacing
state of the East required more than ordinary watchful-
ness, and a more rigid plan of government in the adja-
cent provinces ; and thus the change in society, which
was working unnoticed in the more peaceful and less
Cliristianised West, in the East might be forced upon
the attention of an active and inquiring ruler. The
apprehensions of the inhabitants themselves would be
more keenly ahve to the formation of a separate and
secluded party within their cities; and religious ani-

Orap. VI.

PERSECUTION UNDER TRAJAN.

101

mosity would eagerly seize the opportunity of impli-
cating its enemies in a charge of disaffection to the
existing government. Nor is there wanting evidence
that the acts of persecution ascribed to Trajan were, in
fact, connected with the military movements of the
Emperor. The only authentic Acts are those of Simeon,
Bishop of Jerusalem ; I cannot admit those of Ignatius,
Bishop of Antioch.*^ In the prefatory observations to
the former, it is admitted that this martyrdom was a local
act of violence. The more celebrated trial of Ignatius is
stated to have taken place before the Emperor himself
at Antioch, when he was preparing for his Eastern cam-
paign. The Emperor is represented as kindling to
anger at the disparagement of those gods on whose pro-
tection he reckoned in the impending war. " What ! Is
our religion to be treated as senseless ? Are the gods, on
whose alliance we rely against our enemies, to be turned
to scorn?"- But the whole interview with Trajan is
too legendary to command authority. Nevertheless, at
that time there were circumstances which account with
singular likelihood for that sudden outburst of persecu-
tion in Antioch. Trajan knew that the whole Jewish
world was in a state of actual, or of threatened insurrec-
tion. It is probable that the clearest understanding,
agitated by alarm and hatred, would lose, if it had yet
attained, any distinct discernment of the difference
between Jews and Christians. Hardly two years before,
the Christians had been denounced by a provincial
governor in the East as dangerous disturbers of the

* See them in Rnmart, Selecta et
sincere Martjrum Acta.

** *H/ic7f odp aroi HoKovfitp Karh
vovp fi^ ^X^^^ Otohs, oTs Kcd xpc^A^Oa
^vfifidxois 9fhi robs voKt/Alws,

The Jewish legends are full of acts of
personal cruelty, ascribed to Trejan,
mingled up, as usual, with historical
errors and anachronisms. See Hiat
vif Jews ii. 418.

102 IGNATIUS. BISHOP OF AJJTIOCU.

religion, therefore of the peace of the Empire. At thi
very time ftn earthquake, more than usualiy terrible
and destnictive, shook the cities of the East, Antioch
suffered its most appalling ravages — Antioch, crowded
with the legionaries prepared for the Emperor's invasion
of the East, with ambassadors and tributary kings from
all parts of the East. The city shook through all its
streeta; houses, palaces, theatres, temples fell crashing
down. Many were killed : the Consul Pedo died of his
hurts. The Emperor himself hardly escaped through a
window, and took refuge in the Circus, where he passecl
some days in the open air. Whence this terrible blow
but from the wrath of the Gods, who must be appeased'
by unusual sacrifices ? This was towards the end of"
January ; early in Eehmary the Christian Bishop,
Ignatius, was arrested. We know how, during this cen-
tury, at every period of public calamity, whatever that
calamity might be, the cry of the panic-stricken HeatheiW
was, '■ The Christians to the lions ! " It may be that, itt
Trajan's humanity, in order to prevent a general ma*;
sacre by the infuriated populace, or to give greater
solemnity to the sacrifice, the execution was ordered to
take place, not in Antioch, but in Home.

From the Epistles of Ignatius " (I confine myself to
the three short Syriac Epistles, for which we are indebted
to I)r. Cureton) it is manifest that this was no general
persecution. Throughout Ids journey the "Bishop of
Antioch " is in free communication and correspondence
with the Christian communities, and the most eminent

* 1 owe this siiggection to the u

pitity nf Biinsfn (Christianitj and events, Eeema to

Mankind, p. 8S). But thachronologj- their historioil toi

i« from FyDBs Clint™, F»<i Hellenin", wtipUon of tile a

who, though he quota ■uthdiitia for Dion Casdua, lirili.

lis V

Chap. VI. ESTIMATE OF TRAJAN'S CHAKACTER.

103

Bishops of Asia Minor, who appear to be in perfect
security ; Ignatius alone is in danger. Of this solitary
danger he is proud. There is throughout a wild eagerness
for martyrdom (how different from the calm serenity of
St. Paul !). As he would'thus during his journey court,
he may reasonably be supposed, in Antioch to have pro-
voked, martyrdom ; at least he would not have allayed by
prudent concession the indignation and anger of the Go-
vernment. He even deprecates the interference of his
Christian friends in his behalf. He fears lest their ill-
timed, and, as he thinks, cruelly oflScious love might by
some influence (influence which implies their own com-
plete exemption from danger) deprive him of that glorious
crown. He is apprehensive lest their unwelcome appeal
to the Imperial clemency might meet with success.

Trajan, indeed, is absolved, at least by the almost
general voice of antiquity, from the crime of persecuting
the Christians.*^ The legend of his redemption from
purgatory, at the prayer of Pope Gregory I. (Dante,
Purgatorio, x. 47), and his appearance in heaven as one
of the five heathens to whom salvation was vouchsafed

** The recent boasted discovery of a
catacomb, near the seventh milestone
on the Via Nomentana, where Alex-
ander, Bishop of Rome in the reign
of Trajan, who is promoted into a
martyr, was buried; with a chapel
(contemporaiy, as it is boldly asserted)
dedicated to his memory and worahip,
is a pare religions romance. A cata-
comb there is, from which the remains
of S. Alexander are said to have been
i*emoved by Pope Paschal, a Pope of
almost the darkest period in the Papal
annals, A.D. 817-824. Of this there
is not the shadow of a shade of his-
torical evideoce. As to the chapel (I

have visited the spot, and inspected
the ruins, and am confident that it
was never subterranean ; no part of
the catacomb). It was no doubt of
about the age of Jerome; when pil-
grimage to, and worship in, such edi-
fices, sacred to the memory of martjrrs,
who were multiplied according to the
demand, had become a passion. Ex-
cepting of Ignatius, probably of Simeon
of Jerusalem, there is no authentic mar^
tyrdom in the reign of Trajan. The
letters of Ignatius — the genuine letters
— are conclusive against any persecu-
tion of the Christians in Rome*

104 HEIGN OF RADHIAN.

(Paradiso, xx. 43), would hardly have grown up, if there
had been any traditiun of him as another Neio, De<;iii^
or Diocletian.

The cosmopolite and indefatigable mind of Hadrian
Hiidrim Em- waa more likely to discern with accuracy, and
iiT. ' * estimate to its real extent, the growing influence
of the new religion. Hadrian waa, stiU more than his
predecessor, the Emperor of the West rather than the
monarch of Rome. His active genius withdrew itself
altogether from warlike enterprise and foreign conquest }
its whole care waa centered on the consolidation of the
empire witliin its narrower and uncontested boundaries,
and on the internal regulation of the vast confederacy
of nations which were gradually becoming more and
more assimilated, as subjects or members of the great
European empire. The remotest provinces for the first
time beheld the presence of the Emperor, not at the
head of an army summoned to defend the insulted
barriers of the Roman territory, or pushing forward the
advancing line of conquest ; but in more peaceful array,
providing for the future security of the frontier by im'
pregnable fortresses; adorning the more flourishing
cities with public buildings, bridges, and aqueducts;
inquiring into the customs, manners, and even the
religion, of the more distant parts of the world ; en-
couraging commerce ; promoting the ails ; in short,
improving, by salutary regulations, for this long period
of peace, the prosperity and civilisation of the whole
empire. Gaul, Britain, Greece, Syria, Egypt, AfricOi
were in turn honoured by the presence, enriched by the
liberality, and benefited by the wise policy of the Em-
peror.' His personal character showed the same in-

CHAP. VL

HIS CHARACTER.

105

cessant activity and politic versatility. On the frontier,
at the head of the army, he put on the hardi- character of
hood and simplicity of a soldier ; disdained any ^«*"*°-
distinction, either of fare or of comfort, from the meanest
legionary ; and marched on foot, through the most in-
clement seasons. In the peaceful and voluptuous cities
of the South he became the careless and luxurious Epi-
curean. Hadrian treated the established religion with
the utmost respect; he officiated with solemn dignity
as supreme pontiff, and at Kome affected disdain or
aversion for foreign religions.* But his mind w as es-
sentially imbued wi th the philfl gophfc spirit : ^ he vras
tempted by every abstruse research, and every forbidden
inquiry had irresistible attraction for his curious and
busy temper.^ At Athens he was in turn the simple
and rational philosopher, the restorer of the splendid
temple of Jupiter Olympius, and the awe-struck wor-
shipper in the Eleusinian mysteries.^ In the East, he

reUed. (Compare Eckhel, vi. 486.)
He looked into the crater of Etna
saw the sun rise from Mount Casius
ascended to the cataracts of the Nile
heard the statue of Memnon. He
imported exotics from the East. The
journeys of Hadrian are traced, in a
note to M. Solvet's translation of
Hegewisch, cited above, Tertullian
calls him " curiositatum omnium ex-
plorator." ApoL i. v. Eusehius, H.
E. V, 5, irdpra rh, irtpUpya iroAw-
jrpayfiop&p,

* Sacra Romana diligentissim^ cu-
ravit, peregrina contempsit. Spai'tian.
in Hadrian.

* Les autres sentimoits de ce prince
sont tr^s difficiles k connattre. II
n'onbrassa aucun secte, et ne fut ni
Academiden, ni Stdden, encore mcKfaoB

Epicurien ; il parut constamment livr^
k cette incertitude d'opinions, fruit de
la bizarrerie de son caract^re, et d'un
savoir superficiel ou maldiger^. St.
Croix, ubi supra.

* In the Ceesiirs of Julian, Hadrian
is described in the pregnant phrase
iroKvirpayfiov&v rot &,Tr6fi^rjTa, —
busied about all the secret religions.

« The Apology of Quadratus was
presented on Hadrian's visit to Athens,
when he was initiated in the Mysteries ;
that of Aristides when he became
Epoptes, A.D. 131. Warburton con-
nects the hostility of the celebrators
of the Mysteries towards Christianity
with the Apology of Quadratus, and
quotes a passage from Jerome to this
effect. Compare R^ath's Reliquia
SttQFse, i 70.

108 HAOaiAN'S POLICY. Book a

aspired to penetrate the recondite aecrets of magic, and
professed himself an adept injudicial astrology. In the
midst of all this tampering with foreign religions, he at
once paid respect to and outraged the prevailing creed
by the deification of Antinoua, in whose honour quin-
quennial games were established at Mantinea; a city
built, and a temple, with an endowment for a priest-
hood/ founded and called by hia name, in Egypt : hia
statues assumed the symbols of various deities. Acts
like these, at this critical period, must have tended to
alienate a large portion of the thinking class, already
wavering in their cold and doubtful Polytheism, to any
purer or more ennobling system of religion.

Hadrian not merely surveyed the surface of society,
but his sagacity seemed to penetrate deeper into the
relations of the different classes to each other, and into
the more secret workmgs of the social system. Hie
regulations for the mitigation of slavery were recom-
mended, not by humanity alone, but by a wise and
prudent policy.' It was impossible that the rapid growth
of Christianity could escape the notice of a mind so in-
quiring aa that of Hadrian, or that he could be altogether
Hsdrt»n'< blind to its ultimate bearings on the social
S^'chrtB- state of the empire. Yet the generally himiaue
tumii)', g^jj^ pacific character of his government would
he a security against violent measures of persecution ;
and the liberal study of the varieties of human opinion
would induce, if not a wise and rational spirit of tolera-
tion, yet a kind of contemptuous indifference towards
the most inexplicable aberrations from the prevailing
opinions. The apologists for Christianity, Quadratus

Chap. VI, HIS FAIRNESS TO THE CHBISTIANB.

107

and Aristides, addressed their works to the Emperor,
who does not appear to have repelled their respectful
homage.* The rescript which he addressed, in the
early part of his reign, to the proconsul of Asia, afforded
the same protection to the Christians against the more
formidable danger of popular animosity, which Trajan
had granted against anonymous delation. In some of the
Asiatic cities their sullen and unsocial absence from the
public assemblies, from the games, and other public
exhibitions, either provoked or gave an opportunity for
the latent animosity to break out against them. A
general acclammation would sometimes demand their
punishment. ^*The Christians to the lions!" was the
fierce outcry ; and the names of the most prominent
or obnoxious of the community would be denounced
with the same sudden and imcontroUable hostility. A
weak or superstitious magistrate trembled before the
popular voice, or lent himself a willing instrument to
the fury of the populace. The procoDsul Serenus Gra-
nianus consulted the Emperor as to the course to be
pursued on such occasions. The answer of Hadrian is
addressed to Minucius Eundanus, probably the successor
of Granianus. It enacts that, in the prosecution of
the Christians, the formalities of law should be strictly
complied with ; that they should be regularly arraigned
before the legal tribunal, not condemned on the mere
demand of the populace, or in compliance with a lawless
outcry.^ The edict does credit to the humanity and

* See the fragments in Routh, Reli-
quise Sacrse, i. 69-78.

*» Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 68, 69.
Kuseb. H. E. iv. 9. Mosheim, whose
opinions on the state of the Christians
are coloured by too lenient a view of

Roman toleration, considers this edict
by no means more favourable to the
Christians than that of Trajan. It
evidently offered them protection under
a new and peculiar ezigeocj.

108

HADHIAM ICKORANT OF CHBISTIANITY.

wisdom of Hadrian. But, notwithstanding bis active
and inquisitive mind, and the ability of hia general
Hudrtan In- policv, few pei"son8 were, perhaps, less qualified
undemund- to judge of the real nature of the new religion,
"W- or to comprehend the tenacious hold which it

would obtain upon the mind of man. His character
wanted depth and seriotiBness to penetrate or to under-
stand the workings of a high, profound, and settled
religious enthusiasm.' The graceful verses which he
addressed to his departing spirit '' contrast with the
solemn earnestness ivith which the Christians wei'u
J mankind to consider the mysteries of another
But. on the whole, the long and peaceful reign of
Hadrian allowed free scope to the progress of Chris-
tianity ; the increasinfT wealth and prosperity of the
empire probably raised in tbe social scale that class

the religioiii anaietj in h'gyfU as it
eiialed, or, mther, US It appeared to
the inqurhitivs Emperor. '^ 1 am now.
Jay dear Serrianui, become fully ac-
quaintrd with that Egypt which yon
pralH 10 highly. 1 have found Iha
p»ple Tain, fickle, Hnd biiiftjng with
evei'J' breach of papular rumour.
Those who worship Sernpi^ are Chria-
linns[ and those who call themselTa
Oimtiaa biahopi are woi-ahippen of
Serspis. Then ii do jiil<^t of a Jew-
ish Bjnagt^ue, no SamiirilHH, LO Qiris-
tim bisliDp, nho is not an astrologer,
em ialerpiTter of prodigies, and an
nnointer. The Patriarrh himadf,
be comts to ERvpt, is onmpelloit by
Hie party to worship Serapia, by thfl

rtber, Christ They have hut

ciDe God: him, Qiiistians, Jews, and

Gentiles, worship aliliB." This latter
cliiLse Casaabon understood scrlouily.
It is evidently malicioni satire. The
common God is Gain. The tey to
the former carious statement is pro-
bahly that the tone of the higher, the

fashionable, so

n Alec

sffevt, e

philosophic Iheoiy, that all these reli-
gions differed only in foi-m. but were
essentially the same; thnt all adored
one Deity, all one Logos or Demlnrge,

the same arts to impnsB upon th»
Tulgnr, and nil were fqually dmpicable
to Iha nal philosopher. Dr. Burton,
in his History of the Church, sng-
ge^tcd. with mudi ingennity, that tbt
Snmarilana mav hBTe i*en the Gnostic
tbllowers of Simon Magns.

Chap. VI. ANTONINUS PIUS. 109

among whi^h it was chiefly disseminated; while the
better part of the more opulent would be tempted, at
least to make themselves acquainted witli a religion the
moral influence of which was so manifestly favourable to
the happiness of mankind, and which offered so noble a
solution of the great problem of human philosophy, the
immortality of the soul.

The gentle temper of the first Antoninus would
maintain that milder system which was adopted Antomims
by Hadrian from policy or from indifference, ^f^.
The Emperor, whose parental vigilance scruti- ^^•
nised the minutest affairs of the most remote pro-
vince, could not be ignorant, though his own residence
was fixed in Eome and its immediate neighbourhood,
of the still expanding progress of Christianity. The
religion itself acquired every year a more public cha-
racter. The Apology now assumed the tone of an
arraignment of the folly and unholiness of the esta-
blished Polytheism ; nor was this a low and concealed
murmur within the walls of its own places of assem-
blage, or propagated in the quiet intercourse of the
brethren. It no longer affected disguise, or dissem-
bled its hopes ; it approached the foot of the throne ;
it stood in the attitude, indeed, of a suppliant, claiming
the inalienable rights of conscience, but asserting in
simple confidence its moral superiority, and, in the
name of an Apology, publicly preaching its own doc-
trines in the ears of the sovereign and of the world.
The philosophers were joining its ranks ; it was rapidly
growing up into a rival power, both of the religions and
philosophies of the world. Yet, during a reign in which
auman life assumed a value and a sanctity before un-
known; in which the hallowed person of a senator

:io

EDICTS OP jJiTONIKCS.

BooKlL

nas not once violated, even by the stem hand of jus-
tice;" imderan Emperor who professed and practi
the mBxim of Scipio, that he had rather save the life of
a single citizen than cause the death of a thousand ene-
mies ; ' who considered the suhjeets of the Empire m one
family, of which himself was the parent,' even religious
zeal would be rebuked and overawed ; and the pi-ovincial
governments, which too oft«n reflected the fierce passions
and violent barbarities of the throne, would now, in tnm,
image back the calm and placid serenity of the imperial
tribunal. Edicts are said to have been issued to some of
the Grecian cities — Larissa, Thessalonica, and Athens —
and to the Greeks in general, to refrain from any un-
precedented severities agaiust the Christians. Another
rescript,'' addressed to the cities of Asia Minor, speaks
language too distinctly Christian even tor the anticipated
Christianity of diaposition evinced by Antoninus. It
calls upon the Pagans to avert the anger of Heaven,
which was displayed in earthquakes and other public
calamities, by imitating the piety, rather than denouncing
the atheism, of the Christians. The pleasing viaion

• Jul. C«pit. Antm. Hui, Aug.

as spurious. The older writers di»

Script, p. 138.

pnt«i <o which of the Anunini it be-

' Ibii. p. 140.

long. Lardner STgues, from the

■ The leiga of Antgdinns the First

Apologies of Justin Martjr, that the

kilmostabbiDk in history. Thebrwk

Cliristians were pemecuted " even to

of Dion CassiuB which rontaioed his

dailh" during this reign. The Inletw

reign was lott, eicepl a sninll part.

ence is inconclusive: their wen ab-

whenXlphilinwint.^. XiphilmMWrta

nuiiDIU to the l™, Md might enden-

Oat ADtonmD. tvoured the Chris-

TDur to gain the law on their aide.

tiuis.

though it may not hays been carried

"■ Thf rMCi'ipl of Auloninui!, in

into ejeeolion. The general voice of

Enstbiiu, to which XIphiliD aJluda

Chap. VL HIS CHARACTER. Ill

must, it is to be feared, be abandoned, which would
represent the best of the Pagan Emperors bearing his
public testimony in favour of the calumniated Chris-
tians ; the man who, from whatever cause, deservedly
bore the name of the Pious among the adherents of
his own religion, the most wisely tolerant to tlio feitli
of the Gospel,

112 lUBCnS AXTBEUUS. Book L

CHAPTEE VIL

Christianity and Marcus Aurelios the Philosopher.

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius the Philosopher was of
a more lofty and vigorous character than that of his
gentle predecessor. The Second Antoninus might seem
the last effort of Paganism, or rather of Gentile philo-
sophy, to raise a worthy opponent to the triumphant
career of Christianity. A blameless disciple in the
severest school of philosophic morality, the austerity of
Marcus rivalled that of the Christians in its contempt of
the follies and diversions of life ; yet his native kindli-
ness of disposition was not hardened and embittered by
the severity or the pride of his philosophy.* With
Aurelius, nevertheless, Christianity found not only a
fair and high-minded competitor for the command of
the human mind ; not only a rival in the exaltation of
the soul of man to higher views and more dignified
motives, but a violent and intolerant persecutor. During
his reign, the martyrologies become more authentic and
credible ; the distinct voice of Christian history arraigns
the Philosopher, not indeed as the author of a general
and systematic plan for the extirpation of Christianity,
but as withdrawing even the ambiguous protection of
the former Emperors, and giving free scope to the
excited passions, the wounded pride, and the jealous

■ Verecnndas sine ignavift, sine tristiti& gravis. Jul. Capit. Aug. Hist

p. leo.

■ asAP. VII. AITKBED POSITION OP CBElSTXANIXr. 113

interests of its enemies ; neither discountenancing the
stern determination of the haughty governor to break
the contumacious spirit of resistance to his authority,
nor the outburst of popular fury, wliich sought to appease
the offended gods by the sacrifice of these despisera of
their Deities.

Three important causes concurred in bringing about
this dangerous crisis in the destiny of Chris- Thrremqsea
tianity at this particular period: — 1. The iiiyofM.
change in the relative position of Christianity stagovmi-
to tlie religion of the Empire ; 2, The circum- cutuHaoit)-
stances of the times ; 3. The character of the Emperor.
/ I. Sixty years of almost uninterrupted peace, since the
V beginning of the second century, bad opened a
' wide field for the free development of Chris- poaiiionof

i- ■. T. l_ J J ■ i . p ^1 Chrtilionilj

tiamty. it bad spread mto every quarter ot the m teganj lo
Romau dominionB, The "Western provinces,
Gaul and Africa, rivalled the East in the number, if not iu
the opulence, of their Christian congregations. In almost
every city had gradually arisen a separate community,
aeeeding from the ordinary habits and usages of life, at
least from the public religions ceremonial ; governed by
its own laws; acting upon a common principle; and
bound together in a kind of latent federal union through-
out the empire. A close and intimate correspondence
connected this new moral republic. An impulae, an
opinion, a feeling, which originated in Egypt or Syria,
was propagated with electric rapidity to the remotest
frontier of the West, Irenseus, the Bishop of Lyons in
Gaul, whose purer Greek had been in danger of corrup-
I tion from his intercourse with the barbarous Celtic
I tribes, enters into a controversy with the speculative
I teachers of Antioch, Edessa, or Alexandria ; while Ter-
(tullian in his rude African Latin denounces or advocates
VOL. II. I

114 SPEEAD OF CnnrSTlAKITY. BooKll.

opiuions which sprang up in Pontua or in Phrygia, A
tiew kind of literature had arisen, prop^ated with the
utmost zeal of proaelj'tism, amoug a numerous class of
readers, who began to close their ears against the pro-
fane fables and the unsatisfactory philosophical systems
of Paganism. While the Emperor himself conde-
scended, in Greek of no despicable purity and elegance
for the age, to explain the lofty tenets of the Porch, and
to commend its noble morality to his subjects, the
minds of a large portion of the world were preoccupied
by writers who, in language often impregnated with
foreign aud SjTian barbarisms, enforced still higher
morals, resting upon religious tenets altogether new and
incomprehensible excepting to the initiate. Their
sacred books were of still higher authority ; commanded
the homage, and required the diligent and respectful
study, of all the disciples of the new faith. Nor was
this empire within the empire, this universally dissemi-
nated sect— which had its own religious rites, its own
laws, to which it appealed rather than to the statutes of
the empire ; its own judges (for the Christians, wherever
they were able, submitted their disputes to their bishop
and his associate presbyters), its own financial regula-
lions, whether for the maintenance of public worship, or
for charitable purposes; its own religious superiors, who
exercised a very different control from that of the pon-
tiffs or sacerdotal colleges of Piiganisin ; ita own usages
and conduct ; in some respects its own language — con-
fined to one class, or to one description of Roman
subjects. Christians were to be found iu the court, in
the camp, in the commercial market; they discharged
all the duties, and did not decline any of the offices, of
society. They did not altogether shun the forum,
or abandon all interest in the civil administration ; they

CH4P. VII, TEBTULLIAirS PLEA FOE lOLEKATIOS. 116

Tiad their mercantile transactions, in common with the
rest of that class. One of their apologists indignantly
repels the charge of their being useless to society : " We
are no Indian Brahmins, or devotees, living naked in
the woods, selt-banished irom civilised life. We grate-
fully accept, we repudiate no gift of God the Creator ;
we are only temperate in their use. We avoid not
your forum, your markets, yonr baths, your shops, your
forges, your inns, your fairs. We are one people with
you in all worldly commerce. We serve with you as
sailors, as soldiers ; we are husbandmen and merchants
like you. We practise the same arts ; we contribute to
all public works for your use."" Among their most re-
markable distinctions, no doubt, was their admission of
slaves to an equality in religious privileges. Tet there
was no attempt to disorganise or correct the existing
relations of society. Though the treatment of riaves in
Christian families could not but be softened and huma-
nised, as well by the evangelic temper as by this
acknowledged equality in the hopes of another life, yet
Christianity left the emancipation of mankind from
these deeply-rooted distinctions between the i'ree and
servile races to times which might be ripe for so great
and important a change.

This secession of one part of society from its accus-

» I »iW Tenulliaa's L
Iruetooai in c^tils dici
pocto homlnra loblacun
Q^usdem victllst habilQji,

enim BnubmiuiB^, aut Ind
nowplilstie BuniD*, Ejlricolie et uules
tILv. Heminimut gniljiuii HM di-
bert Deo domiuo ciwitoH, nullum

t perpeiam uUunur. IiaquB n

e tbro, nou line macrllo, non li

bqlncia, tabemiB, ofliciuirt, stabuJifl. nu

H« CONNEXION OF CHHISTIANITT BoMt H.

tomed religious intercouree with the rest, if in nothing
but religious intercouree, independent of the nttmhers
whose feelings and interests were implicated in the
support of the national religion in all its pomp and
authority, would necessarily produce estrangement,
jealousy, animosity.

As Christianity became more powerful, a vagoe appre-
uonnEiion of heuBion began to spread abroad among the
"Uhiheiiii Roman people that the fall of their old reli-
Empire. gion might, to a certain degree, involve that
of their civil dominion; and this apprehension, it cannot
be denied, was justified, deepened, and confirmed, by
the tone of some of the Christian writings, no doubt by
the language of some Christian teachers. Idolatry was
not merely an individual, hut a national, sin, which
would be visited by temporal as well as spiritual retri-
bution, The anxiety of oae at least, and that certainly
not the most discreet of the Christian apologists, to dis-
claim all hostility towards the temporal dignity of the
Empire, implies that the Christians were obnoxious
to this charg;e. The Christiana are calumniated, writes
Tertullian to Scapula," at a somewhat later period
(under Severus), as guilty of treasonable disloyalty to
the Emperor. As the occasion required, he exculpates
them from any leaning to Niger, Albinus, or Cassius,
the competitors of Severua, and then proceeds to make
this solemn protestation of loyalty : " The Christian ia
the enemy of no man, assuredly not of the Emperor.

msj«Etal«iii impei'i
I nuaiusm Alhi
c KigriMii, rel Cssmuii, Id
it Christiani.

[

Chap. Vll. WITH THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.

The sovereign he knows to be ordained by God ; of
necessity, therefore, he loves, reveres, and honours liim,
and prays for his safety, with that of the whole Roman
Empire, that it may endure — and endure it will — as lou^
as the world itselt"'* But otiier Christian do- Taosotaum^
curaents, or at least documents eagerly dissemi- ^'|2^„n.
nated by the Christians, speak a very different uiS>ppre^'
language.' By many modem interpreters, the ''™"™-
Apoealj-pse itself is supposed to refer, not to the fall of
a predicted spiritual Rome, but of the dominant Pagan
Rome, the visible Babylon of idolatry, and pride, and
cruelty. According to this view, it is a grand dramatic
vaticination of the triumph of Christianity over Heathen-
ism in its secular as well as its spiritual power. Be
tills as it may, in later wi-itings, the threatening and
maledictory tone of the Apocalypse is manifestly bor-
rowed, aiid directed against the total abolition of
Paganism, in its civil as well as religious supremacy.
Many of these forged prophetic writings belong to the
reign of the Antonines, and could not emanate from any
quarter but that of the more injudicious and fanatical
Christians. The second (Apocryphal) book of Esdras is
of this character, the work of a Judaising Christian ; ' it
refers distinctly (o the reign of the twelve Ctesars,'' anil
obscurely intimates, in many parts, the approaching dis-
solution of the existing order of things. The doctrine of

* Quoiuque iscuium stnlrit.

' The general character of the

• I hava been much iodebted, in

worit, the i.Blionality of Ihe perpetuiil

thii puaigs, to the eiwUent work of

nllueiona to the histovj and tbrtni.i^M

Tuchimtr, 'Der Full dfa Heiden-

of the race of lemel, betray tie Jew ;

thums,' I WDik writlea with so much

the parages oh. ii. 42. 48; r. 5;

leanilDg, undoiii', nnj ChHstinn Icm-

Tii. 26, 29, are avowed ChristUiillji

pei'. ss to Ficite gi'eat regiM tbnt it

On thlB book rend Ewald.

mat hCl Incomplete at iU author's

■ C. tii. 14. Corapsre Bamnco

toU>.

Hist. de. Juifa, L yii. e. 2.

lift THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book IL

the Minenniam, whicli was as yet far from exploded or
fallen into disregard, mingled with all these prophetic
anticipations of future change in the destinies of man-
kind.'' The visible thi'one of Christ, according to these
uTitinga, was to be erected on the ruins of all eai-tldy
empires : the nature of Ilis kingdom wonld, of course, he
imintelligible to the Heathen: and all that he would
comprehend would be a vague notion that the empire of
the world was to be transferred from Eome, and that this
extinction of the majesty of the Empire was, in Bome in-
comprehensible mauner, connected with the triumph of
the new faith. His terror, liia indignation, and his con-
tempt, would lead to fierce and implacable animosity.
Even in Tertullian's Apology, the ambiguous word
" sseculum " might mean no more than a brief and
limited period, which was yet to elapse before the final
consummation.

But the Sibylline verses, which clearly belong to this
TbesibyoiM period, express, in the most remarkable manner,
'*'*' this spirit of exulting menace at the expected

simultaneous fall of Koman idolatry and of Roman em-
pira The oi'igin of the whole of the Sibylline oracles
now extant is not distinctly apparent, either from the
style, the manner of composition, or the subject of their
predictions.' It is manifest that they were largely inter-
polated by tlie Cliristians, to a late period, and some of
the books can be assigned to no other time but the
present" Bluch, nu doubt, was of an older date. It is

■■ Tlie™ ore nji|pjiiEnt aUuaione U> ^ books there blitUe prophecj; it i> in

the MilJeBDiiun in Hiu SibyhlDi.' Venn, general the Moaic hilvrj, id GnA

pirtu.'ulai'lj at the dose of the eighth ' heuuneters. If liierc Hre nn; fnu;-

book. I iniDtt of Heathen venes, the; ore in

' The first book, to pig* 176, nmy , Ihe third book,

be Jewish ; it then Jiqcoiopb Chriitinn, ' Ad hoium imperalornm (Anli>-

■■ well Ha the H^ixmil. But iu th^^! . Diui Fii cum liberie sui> U. Auvla

Chap. VII.

THEIK PROBAjBLE ORIGIN.

119

scarcely credible that the Fathers of this time would
quote contemporary forgeries as ancient prophecies.
The Jews of Alexandria, who had acquired some taste
for Grecian poetry, and displayed some talent for the
translation of their sacred books into the Homeric lan-
guage and metre,™ had, no doubt, set the exeimple of
versifying their own prophecies, and of ascribing them
to the Sibyls, whose names were universally venerated,
as revealing to mankind the secrets of futurity. They
may have begun by comparing their own prophets
with these ancient seers, and spoken of the predictions
of Isaiah or Ezekiel as their Sibylline verses, which may
have been another word for prophetic or oracular.

Almost every region of Heathenism boasts its SibyL"
Poetic predictions, ascribed to these inspired women,
were either published or religiously preserved in the
sacred archives of cities. Nowhere were they held in
such awful reverence as in Kome. The opening of the

et Lucio Vero) tempora videntur
Sibyllarum vaticinia tantum extendi ;
id quod etiam e lib. v. videre licet.
Note of the editor, Opsopaus, p. 688.
•" Compare Valckenaer's learned
treatise De Aristobulo Judseo. The
fragments of Ezekiel Tragaedus, and
many passages, which are evident ver-
sions of the Jewish Scriptures, in the
works of the Fathers, particularly of
Eusebius, may be traced to this school.
It is by no means impossible that the
PoUio of Virgil may owe many of its
beauties to those Alexandrian vemfiers
of the Bebrew prophets. Vu^il, who
wrought up indiscriminately into his
refined gold all the ruder ore which
he found in the older poets, may have
Men aad admired some of these verses.

He may have condescended, as he
thought, to borrow the images of
these religious books of the barba-
rians, as a modern might the images
of the Vedas or of the Koran.

■ See on the different Sibyls and
the origin of the different poems the
dissertation the (Excursus 1. and vi.)
of the new editor of the Sibylline
verees, M. Alexandre, t. ii. (Paris,
1856). On the Roman Sibylline
books, Excursus iii. I do not pledge
myself to all M. Alexandre's historical
criticism ; but I wish to bear my
humble testimony to the superiority
of this edition over all previous
ones. The editor has availed himself
of the valuable suggestions of Bleek.

120 THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book n.

SibyUine books was an event of rare occarrenee, and
Liiily at seasons of fearful disaster or peril. Nothing
would be more tempting to tbe sterner or more ardent
Christian, than to enlist, as it were, on his side, these
authorised Pagan interpreters of futurity ; to extort, it
might seem, from their own oracles, tliis confession of
their approaehing dissolution. Nothing, on the other
hand, would more strongly excite the mingled feehngs of
apprehension and animosity in the minds of the Pagans,
than this profanation, as it would appeal', whether they
disbeheved or credited them, of the sacred treasures of
praphecy. It was Paganism made to utter, in its most
hallowed language, and by its own inspired proplieta, its
own condemnation ; to announce its own immediate
downfall, and the triumph of its yet obscure enemy over
both its religioiis and temporal dominion.

Tbe fifth and eighth books of the Sibylline oracles
are ihoau which most distinctly betray the sentimenta
and language of the Christians of this period." In the
spirit of the Jewish prophets, they denounce the folly of
worshipping gods of wood and stone, of ivory, of gold,
and silver ; of offering incense and sacriliue to dumb and
deaf deities. The gods of Egypt, and those of Greece
— Hercules, Jove, and Mercury— are cut off. The
ivhole sentiment is in the contemptuous and aggressive
tone of the later, rather than the more temperate and
defensive argument of the earlier, apologists for Chria-
tiiiiiity. But the Sibyis are made, not merely to de-
nounce the fall of Heathenism, bnt the ruin of Heathen
states and the desolation of Heathen cities. Many
sages relate to Egypt, and seem to point out Alexandria,
with Asia Minor, the cities of which, particularly Lao-

Ci.*P. Vil. THEIE CONTENTS. 121

dicea, are freqnently noticed, as the chief staple of
these poetico-prophetic forgeries.^ The foliowing pas-
sage might flltfiost seem to have been ivritten after the
destruction of the Serapeum by TheodoaioB : '' " Isis,
tiirice hapless goddess, thou shalt remain alone on the
shores of the Nile, a solitary Msanad by the sands of
Acheron. No longer shall thy memory endure upon
the earth. And thou, Serapis, that restest upon thy
stones, mncli must thou suffer ; thou shalt be the
mightiest niiii in thrice hapless Egypt ; and those, who
worshipped thee for a god, shall know thee to be
nothing. And one of the linen-clothed priests shall
say, Come, let va build the beautiful temple of the true
God ; let us change the awful law of our ancestors, who,
in their ignorance, made thehr porapa and festivals to
gods of stone and clay ; let us turn our hearts, hymning
the Everlasting God, the Eternal Father, the Lord of
all, the True, the King, the Creator and Preserver of
our souls, tiie Great, the Eternal God,"

BouXSj 'HpaKf-mis tf AuSs -rt Kol 'Ep/indo.~P. 558.
Tlw first of ihese lines is rautilHtod.

MoiJm), /iBii-it Ktiwtoi, M itafiiSoi! 'AX'pivros,
Kol«.Vi iTDu fu'ui 7< f.(f(T nari talaf fiiraottv.
Kol (ri- Zipari, KlSois ^iriUfff.H'E, ffoAXi iJjrri\a'.it.

KbI tI! ifi' rat Upiay \inriairios iyiip'

&evrt rit tti irpvyAvtov Zfivhv v&pjiv i\Ai£{v^tr,
TeS x^P'" 9 aI^'vo" I"^ oaTpaKivouii tiaUri

AutAp rhv yeivr^p^ rir crfBim* ytya&raj

fifj(ifTp^^ov ytvfTTipaj Qriv fiiyav, tiXit lArrcL.

Lib. V. p. S'ii, «<lit. (>^U. .^milelod. MiZ.

122

SIBYLLINE PROPHECY AS TO HADHIAW. Book II

A bolder prophet, without doubt writing precisely at
this perilous crisis, dares, in the name of a Sibyl, to
[Connect together the approaching fall of Kome and the
gods of Eome. " haughty Rome, the just chastise-
ment of Heaven shall come down upon thee from on
liigh; thou ahalt stoop thy neck, and be levelled witli
the earth; and fire shall consume thee, razed to thy
very foundations ; and thy wealth shall perish ; wolves
and foxes shall dwell among thy ruins, and thou shalt
be desolate as if thou hadst never been. Where then
will be thy Palladium ? Which of thy gods of gold, or
of stoue, or of brass, eliall save thee ? Where then the
decrees of thy senate? \\Tiere the race of Rhea, of
Saturn, or of Jove ; all the lifeless deities thou hast
worshipped, or the shades of the deified dead ? When
thrice five gorgeous Ctesars [the twelve Cfesare usually
80 called, with Xerva, Ti-ajan, Hadrian], who liave en-
slaved the world from east to west, shall be, one will
arise silver-helmed, with a name like the neighbouring
sea [Hadrian and the Hadriatic Sea]." ■■ The poet de-
flcribes the busy and lavish character of Hadrian, his

' 'Hfci col tot' inuBi/ I-m, i}\>aixti-

lU{(Sa^ur0j)tr7j, kbI np at SAiip inx

Kui tra eiii,i9\a \iiioi, xal SA^atts olnitiroii'
Kol tAt' ttrjt irapifnttAOi Shus, as fiii •ytyopvi
aoS rirc noAAdSioi' .- iroTut at Bths imo-iiiTci
Xpuaoit, 4 tdSit^s, )) xi>^ifo! ' ^1 'r^* ^"v <
Ajy^tsTO eiryKXiiTBa ; wov, 'PflyJI, ^i Kpivot

OteAft Vn. PROPHECY RELATING TO NERO. 123

curiosity in prying into all religious mysteries, and his
deification of Antinous.^

" After him shall reign three, whoze times shall be the
last} * * * Then from the uttermost parts of the earth,
whither he fled, shall the matricide [Nero] return,"

There is another allusion to Hadrian,
lib. V. p. 552, much more laudatory :
"^ffrcu KoX TravdpioTos &H)p, Koi

The ruin of Rome, and the restora-
tion of Europe to the East, are like-
wise alluded to in the following pas-
sages : lib. iii. p. 404-i08 ; v. 573-
576 J viii. 694^ 712, 718.

* K6(r(iov ivoirrticoif fuap^ voti, dapa vopi^cop

« « « «

Kal fiayiKwy iStJrwi' fivtrTfipia vdyra fieOf^ti,
UouJik Behu BtiKV^crei, &ircuna ffefidafuvra XtJcrei. — P. 688.
(Compare the ziith book, published by A. Mai, where the reading is Ihitf
iro8i, line 167.)

* Thv fitrit rpeis &p^ov(ri, vcof^ararov ^fiap tlx^^^^^ —

One of these three is to be an old man, to heap up vast treasure^ in order
to surrender them to the Eastern destioyei-, Nero —

fy Srav y* &irav€\6y
*E« veplrcov yalris t (pxryas firirpoKTSvos i\0(i)V,
Kol t<Jt€ irey^^crets, v\arv irSpipvpov fiyefioirfiuy
*«s iK^vffa/JLeyri, Koi vfvOifxov flfia (t>€pov(ra,

* « * *

K<d yh.p &€T0(p6pa)y Xtyedovtav 5<J|a irecretTat.
Ilov rSre ffoi rh Kpdros : icoia yri crvyi^axos tffrcuy
Aov\<ad€7a'a reais ixaraio<ppoa'vvri(riy kBifffiws ;
Tidor\s yh.p yalris dvrirSov rSre o'luyxvo'ts Itrrax,
Abrbs vavroKpdroip irhv i\6ioy fiiifiaffi Kpivy
Z^vTcoy Kou ycK^Kav ^vx^s^ koIX KSfffioy Anoana,

* ♦ * «

'Ek tot€ (Toi fipxryfids, Koi (rKopirifffids, Kcd &\o)<ri5,
nratris Bray IA.0J7 Tr6\€0DVy koI X'^^i""''"* yot^VS.

Lib. viii. 688.

u The strange notion of the flight
of Nero beyond the Euphrates, from
whence he was to return as Antichrist,
is almost the burthen of the Sibylline
verses. Compare lib. iv. p. 520-525 ;
V. 573, where there is an allusion to
his theatrical tastce, 619-714. The

best commentary is that of St. Au-
gustine on the Thessalonians : ** Et
tunc revelabitur ille iniquus. Ego
prorsus quid dizerit me fateor igno-
rare. Suspiciones tamen hominum,
quas vel audire vel l^re de h&c re
potui, non tacebo. Quidam putant

124 SIBYLLINE PROrHECIES.

And now, king of Rome, shalt thou mourn, disrobed
of tlie purple laliolave of thy rulers, and clad in sack-
cloth. The glory of thy eagle-bearing legions shall
perish. "Where shall be thy might? What land, which
thou hast enslaved by thy vain laurels, shall be thine
ally ? For there shall be confusion on all mortals over
the whole earth, when the Almighty Euler comes, and,
seated upon his throne, judges the souls of the quick and
of the dead, and of the whole worli There shall be
wailing and scattering abroad, and ruin, when the fall
of the cities shall come, and the abyss of earth shall
open."

In another passage, the desolation of Italy, the return
of Nero, the general massacre of kings, are portrayed
in fearful terms. The licentiousness of Rome is detailed
in the blackest colours. " Sit silent in thy sorrow,
guilty and liLxuriouB city; the vestal >irgm8 shall no
longer watch the sacred fire; thy house is desolate.'"
Christianity is tben represented under the imago of
a pure and heaven-descending temple, embracing the
whole human race.

hoc de inperio dictum fnase llamano ;
Bt proptorea Pflulum Aponlolmn don
id apertfe scribere Toluisse, ne calmn-
ninm fidelicet incairen-t quod Romano
imperio mnlfe optaveril, cum Bpeni-
retiir leUmum : ut hoc quod diiil,
■Jam enim mrrtfriam iniquitntia
opEnnur," Neronem Tolnerit intelligi,
cujus jam facU velut Aatlcfariiti ride-
bantur ; ande nonnulli ipsnm ivanr-

snm putunt. >rd subtractDm poliiis, ut
putAretur crccUua; et vivum occultan
\a Tigora ipsiu
onin credm*ir

tempoiT m-eletur,
r^num." Aixording lo the Sit^-li,
Nero was to make an alliance wiUl
the kings of the Medes and Perfiiaufl ;
return at lie hrad of a mighty "tmy;
Bccarapli;ih hii favoTirile scheme oF
d^ng Uirough the Isthmus ol Co-
rinth, and then mnquer Rome. For
the maimer in which Neandar traces
the gam of this notion in the Apoca-
Ifpso. ue Pflanznng, tier Chr Kircb^

I
I

337. Nen

CHANGE IN ASPECT OF THE TIMES.

H Whether or not these prophecies merely embodied, for
■ the private ediiication, tlie sentiments of the Christitois,
H they are manifest iodicationa of these sentiments ; and
H they would scarcely be concealed with so much prudence
^ and discretion as not to transpire among adversaries, who
now began to watch them with jealous vigilance : if they
were boldly published, for the purpose of converting the
'Heathen, they would be still more obnoxious to the
; general indignation and hatred. However the more
moderate and rational, probably the greater number, of
the Christians might deprecate these dangerous and in-
judicious effusions of zoid, the consequences would
involve all abke in the indiBcriminating animosity
which tliey would provoke ; and, whether or not these
predictions were contained in the Sibylline poems, quoted
by all the early writera, by Justin Martyr, by Clement,
and by Origen, the attempt to an'ay the authority of the
Sibyls against that religion and that empire, of which
they were before considered almost the tutelary guar-
dians, would goad the rankling aversion into violent
I resentment.
The general superiority assumed in any way by
Christianity, directly it came into collision with the
opposite party, would of itself be fatal to the peace
which it had acquired i'u its earlier obscurity. Of all
pretensions, man is most jealous of the claim to moral
Bnperiority.

II. The darkening aspect of the times wrought up
this gi-owing alienation and hatred to open and h ciango in
, furious hostility. In the reign of M. Aureliue, JH^^rtoriiiB
we approach the verge of tliat narrow oasis of ""^
peace which intervenes between the tinal conquests of
Borne and the recoil of repressed and threatening bar-
barism upon the civilisation of the world. The public

126 TEEROR OF THE ROMAN WORLD. Book U.

mind began to be agitated with gloomy rumourB from
the fi-ontier, while calamities, though local, yet spread
over wide dJBtricts, shook the whole Koman people with
apprehension. Foreign and civil ware, inimdations,
earthquakes, pestilences, which I shall presently assign
to their proper dates, awoke the affrighted empire from
ita slumber of tranquillity and peace/

The Emperor Marcus reposed not, like his prede-
cessor, in his Lanuvian villa, amid the peaceful pursuits
of agi-iculture, or with the great jurisconsults of the
time, meditating on a general system of legislation.
The days of the Second Nnma were gone by, and the
Philosopher mtiet leave his speculative school and hia
8toic friends to place himself at the head of the legions.
New levies invade the repose of peaceful families ; even
the public amusements are encroached upon ; the gla-
Tmwflf tha didtors are enrolled to serve in the army.* It
Bonuinworiii. ^gg j^j. ^jjjg Unexpected crisis of calamity and
terror, tliat Superstition, wiich had slept in careless and
Epicurean foT^tfulness of ita gods, suddenly awoke, and
when it fled for succour to the altar of the tutelar deity,
found the temple deserted and the shrine neglected.
One portion of society stood aloof in sullen disregard or
avowed contempt of rites so imperiously demanded by
the avenging gods. If, in the time of public distress,
true religion inspires serene resignation to the Divine
will, and receives tlie awful admonition to more strenuous
and rigid virtue, Superstition shudders at the manifest
anger of the gods, yet looks not within to correct the
offensive guilt, but abroad, to discover some gift or

' TilkmoDt, Ulit. ita Emp. ii. I popnlum nublatis volaptatibis Tellel
593, cogere ad phUwaphuni. JuL Cap

. Fuit tnim populo hie wntio, cum p. 204.
lustvlisiet ad Mltan gladiatora quod I

C»AP. Vn. AKIMOSTTT AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS. 12V

sacrifice which may appease the Divine wrath, and bribe
back the alienated favour of Heaven. Karely does it
discover any oflFering sufficiently costly, except human
life.* The Christians were the public and avowed ene-
mies of the gods ; they were the self-designated victims,
whose ungrateM atheism had provoked, whose blood
might avert, their manifest indignation. The public
religious ceremonies, the sacrifices, the games, the
theatres, aflbrded constant opportunities of inflaming
and giving vent to the paroxysms of popular fury, with
which it disburthened itself of its awful apprehensions.
The cry of " The Christians to the lions ! " was now no
longer the wanton clamour of individual or party malice ;
it was not murmured by the interested, and eagerly re-
echoed by the blood-thirsty, who rejoiced in the exhibition
of unusual victims ; it weis the deep and general voice of
fanatic terror, solemnly demanding the propitiation of
the wrathful gods, by the sacrifice of these impious apos-
tates from their worship.^ The Christians were the
authors of all the calamities which were brooding over
the world, and in vain their earnest apologists appealed
to the prosperity of the empire since the appearance of
Christ, in the reign of Augustus, and showed that the
great enemies of Christianity, the Emperors Nero and
Domitian, were likewise the scourges of mankind.®

* Compare on similar events, pa-
roxjBiiM of popular religious zeal
arising ont of pablic calamities, Har-
tong, Religion des Romer, i. 234.

^ The miraele of the thundering
legioQ (see postea), after having suf-
fered deadly wounds from former
asMulants, was finally transfixed by
the critical spear of Moyle (Works,
foL iL). Is it improbable that it was

invented or wrought up, from a casual
occurrence, into its present form, as a
kind of counterpoise to the reiterated
charge which was advanced against the
Christians, of having caused, by their
impiety, all the calamities inflicted by
the barbarians on the Empire ?

« Melito apud Kouth, Reliq. Sacr.
i. 111. Compare Tertulliau, Ap*
loget. V.

L28 CHAEACTES OF THE EMPEEOB. Book H. ^M

III, Was, then, the phQc.sopher Aurelius superior to ^M
ill. ThsfW tbe vulgar auperstitiou ? In what maimer did ^|
^'^r. his personal character affect the condition of
the Christians ? Did he anthorise, by any new edict, a
general and HyBtematic persecution, or did he only give
free scope to the vengeance of the awe-atrack people, ^m
and conut^nance the timid or fanatic concessions of the ^M
provincial goveniora to the riotous demand of the H
populace for Giiristian blood? Did he actually repeal or
suspend, or only neglect to enforce, the milder edicts of
liis predecessors, which secured to the Christiana a fair
and public trial before the legal tribunal?*- The acts h
ascribed to Marcus Aurelius, in the meagre and unsatia- fl
factory amiala of his reign, are at iasne with the senti- H
raents expressed in his grave and lofty Meditations. ■
He assumes, in his philosophical Incubrations, which he H
dictated duruig his campaigne upon the Danube, the 1
tone of profound rehgious sentiment, but proudly dia- H
claims the influence of superstition upon hia mind. Yet H
in Home he either shared, or condescended to appear to ^M
share, all the terrora of the people. The pestilence, ^
said to have been introduced from the East by the
soldiers, on their return from the Partliian campaign,
had not yet ceased its ravages, when the public mmd
was thrown into a state of the ntmost depression by tlie M
news of the Marcomannic war. M. Aurelius, as we ^M
ghall hereafter see, did not, in his proper person, couu- ^M

' There is au edict of the Emperor
Aurelian in the genuine Acts of at.

and Xeander (i. lOlJ), oo.dd read the
rnrno of H. Aurelios instead of Aur«-

opinion, inconclusii-e, and Ihe feet ihat

Aai-elian ia nnmcd nmnng the perse- ^H
cnting tUmperoia in the tieotise as- ^H
criled to Lactantius (De Mort. Perse- ^H
cutor.), in which his edicts {mipm] ^H
against the Chriitians are di'itinellj ^H

Chap. VIL THE EMPEROR'S PRIVATE SENTIMENTS. 129

tenance, to the utmost, the demands of the popular super-
stition. For all the vulgar arts of magic, divination,
and vaticination, the Emperor declares his sovereign
contempt ; yet on that occasion, besides the public reli-
gious ceremonies, to which I shall presently allude, he
is said himself to have tampered with the dealers in the
secrets of futurity ; to have lent a willing ear to the
prognostications of the Chaldeans, and to the calcula-
tions of astrology. If these facts be true, and all this
werie not done in mere compliance with the Private aenu
general sentiment, the serene composure oi EmDeror.in
Marcus himself may at times have darkened sons.
into terror; his philosophic apathy may not always
have been exempt from the influence of shuddering
devotion. In issuing an edict against the Christians,
Marcus may have supposed that he was consulting the
public good, by conciliating the alienated favour of the
gods. But the superiority of the Christians to all the
terrors of death appears at once to have astonished and
wounded the Stoic pride of the Emperor. Philosophy,
which was constantly dwelling on the solemn question
of the immortality of the soul, could not comprehend
the eager resolution with which the Christian departed
from life; and in the bitterness of jealousy sought out
unworthy motives for the intrepidity which it could not
emulate. " How great is that soul which is ready, if it
must depeirt from the body, to be extinguished, to be
dispersed, or still to subsist ! And this readiness must
proceed from the individual judgement, not from mere
obstinacy, like the Christians, but deUberately, solemnly,
and without tragic display."® The Emperpr did not

* The Emperor's GreeK is by no sage. lFi\^y vapdra^w is usually

means clear in this remarkable pas-

translated as in the text *'iinre oIn

VOL. II. E

130

EDICT OP MARCUS ANTONINUS.

ehoofie to discern that it was in the one case the doubt,
in the other the assurance, of the eternal destiny of the
soul, which constituted the difference. Marcus, no
doubt, could admire, not merely the dignity with which
the philosopher might depart on hi a uncertain but
necessary disembarkation from the voyage of life, and
the bold and fearless valour with which his own legion-
aries or their barbarous ant^onists could confront
death on the field of battle ; but, at the height of hia
wisdom, he could not comprehend the exalted enthu-
siasm with which the Christian trusted in the immor-
tality and blessedness of the departed sonl in the
presence of God.

There can be little doubt tliat Marcus Antoninus
issued an edict by which the Cliristiona were again
exposed to all the denunciations of common informers,
whose zeal was now whetted by some slmre, if not by
the whole, of the confiscated property of delinquents.
The most distinguished Christians of the East were
sacrificed to the base passions of the meanest of man-
kind, by the Emperor, who, with every moral qualifica-
tion to appreciate the new religion, closed his ears, either
in the stem apathy of Stoic pliilosophy, or the more
engrossing terrors of Heathen bigotry.

It is remarkable how closely the more probable
records of Christian martyrology harmonise with the
course of events, during the whole reign of M, Aureliua,

u BiitJthtiU with tSiK ,- .,
that it nCm to the mann«' in whlcli
the Christians arrayed themselves a>
B body ligRinst the nnthorlt^ nf the
peiwcotort; nnJ sliuuld reuder the

dispbij whic

Stoic ]>ride '
dignity Df ai

ACCESSION OF MARCUS AURELIUS.

131

and illustrate and justify my view of the causes and
motives of their persecution/

It wason the 7th March, a.d. 161, that the elder An-
toninus, in tlie charitable words of a Christian
apologist, sank in death into the sweetest sleep,*
and M, Aurelius assumed the reins of empire. He im-
mediately associated with himself the other adopted
son of Antoninus, who took the name of L. Verus.
One treacherous year of peace gave the hope of undis-
turbed repose, under the beneficent sway which carried
the m axims of a severe and humane philosophy into the
administration of public affairs. Mild to all lighter
delinquencies, but always ready to mitigate the severity
of the law, the Emperor was only inexorable to those
more heinous offences which endanger the happiness of
society. While the Emperor himself superintended the
eoDise of justice, the senate resumed its ancient honours.
In the second year of his reign, the horizon
began to darken. During the reign of the First
Antoninus, earthquakes which shook down some of the
Asiatic cities, and fires which ravaged those of tlie West,
had excited much alarm ; but these calamities assumed
a more dire and destructive character during the reign
of AurelioB. Eome itself was first visited with a terrible

' A modem writer, M. Rip«ult

torisn write that— "Tout M

(EM. Philosophiqnede Marc Aurtle),

le» cultea de lempire ^'eI^v*

ucribes to thia time the memorable

parU coDtra les Chiiliena. C

pusag* of Tertnllian's Apoligy:—

hue k ™ qu-on appelle leor

qnelifn gemiiEent tooa lei

tian«ei»cau«un. Si Tibenixucmdil

BBtis privily Hi eitmpdoD,

ill mmia. >i Niliu dob saceodit ia

tiDctialide»ligiol>." Tillemo

ttTR, u .»rium rtelit, n terra rnotH,

des Emp., Marc AurU.

dfamet » iuas, sUtim Christiimai id

taoijes." An oiJer. mo™ leflraod tti-

tonin. 3.

132 CALAMITIES OF THE EMPIRE. BooKH,

inundation." The Tilx^r swept away all the cattle in
the neighbourhood, threw down a great number ol' build-
ings ; among the rest, the granarioB and magEzinee of
corn, which were chiefly situated on the banks of the
river. Thia appalling event was followed by a famine,
wliich pressed heavily on the poorer population of tlie
capital. At the same time, disturbances took place in
Britain. The Catti, a German tribe, ravaged Belgium ;
and the Parthian war, which commenced under most
disastrouB circumstances, tiio invasion of Syria, and the
loss of three legions, demanded the presence of his
colleague in the empire. Though the event was
announced to he prosperous, yet intelligelice of doubtful
and hard-won i-ictories seemed to intimate that the
Bpell of Roman conquest was beginning to lose its
power, '

After four years, Verus returned, bearing the trophies
*-D- iss- of victory : but, at the same time, the seeds of

C«l«mLlies of • ,' -11, 1,

tii8 Empim. a calamity which outweighed all the barren
honours which he had won on the shores of the Eu-
phrates, His army was infected with a pestilence, wliich
superstition ascribed to the plunder of a temple in Seleu-
cia or Babylonia. The rapacious soldiers had opened a
mystic coffer, inscribed with magical signs, from wliich
issued a pestilential air, which laid waste the whole
world. Tliis fable is a vivid indication of the state ol
the public mindJ More rational observation traced the

k Cpitol. M. An

Wnin. p.

IBS. 1 Asi^ wa

moeh lute

than the Pa

' -Sedmdiebia

Puthioi

iKlli, pcr-

thiau w

ir} appears

to connect the

ncintiDDei Christian

riiio, q

aidl jan.

calsmitie

of Rome

with the per

port Neronm. rice

in A«a

at Gallia

pans pnecephi ejus eililanint, tduI-

i Till

wn. railed U

e ■' anha, tsla-

mnniiti

There is a

strange eturj in

fOrffiiui

CapiUiliniu of an im

Poitor who h«-

Ifar tlw ptrsecuiioD

InGsul

if DOT in

rangiKd

the popuLin

Iram the wiW

•■ -Ohap. TD.

PESTILENCE AND WAR.

133

fatal malady from Etliiopia and Egypt to the Eastem
anny, which it followed from province to province,
mouldering away its Btrength as it prowecied, even to
the remote frontiers of Gaul and the northern shores of
the Rhine. Italy felt its moat dreadful ravages, and in
Eome itself thu dead bodies were transported out of the
city, not on the decent bier, but heaped up in waggons.
Famine aggravated the miseries, and, perhaps, increased
the virulence, of the plague." Still the hopes of peace
began to revive the drooping mind ; and flattering
medals were struck, which promised the return of golden
days. On a sudden, the Empire was appalled with the
intelligence of new wars in all quarters. The Moors
laid waste the fertde provinces of Spain ; a rebellion of
ehepherda mthlield the harvests of Egypt from the
capital. Their defeat only added to the dangerous glory
of Avidiua Cassiua, who, before long, stood forth as a
competitor for the Emph-e. A vast confederacy of na-
tions, from the frontiers of Gaul to the borders of Illyri-
cam, comprehending some of the best known and most
formidable of the German tribes, with others whose
dissonant names were new to the Koman eara, had
arisen with a simultaneous movement." The armies
were wasted with the Parthian cam[)aigii8, and the still
more destructive plague.

The Marcomannic has been compared with the Second
Punic War, though, at the time, even in the paroxysm
of terror, the pride of Eome would probably not have

a the Campmi Mardns, and \

usertfil that if, ia throwing binuelf I

trom the tree, ha Bhould be tnruai into I

a stork, fin would &1I rrom h^vcn, >

eaidofl/uiaorldwasalAandi

n de calo lapBUruni

.B he fell, ht

lis confession of the impoi

134

CHRISTIAN MARTYRDOMS.

indeed,* ^1

1117 (fof'H

ill quar'^

ennobled an irruption of barbarians, however furmidable^
hj- such a comparison. The presence of both the Em**:
[lerora was imperiously demanded. I^Itircus, indeed,'!
lingered in Rome, probably to enrol the army (fof'
which purpose he swept together recruits from all quar'
fere, and even robbed the arena of its bravest g1adi&-
tore), certainly to perform the most solemn aiid costly
religious ceremonies. Every rite was celebrated which
could propitiate the Divine favour, or allay the popular
fears. Priests were summoned from all quarters; foreign
rites performed ; " lustrations and funereal banquets for
sevfin days purified the infected city. It was, no doubt,
on this occasion that the unusual number of victims
])rovoked the sarcastic wit which insinuated that, if the
Emperor returned victorious, there would be a dearth
Ghristiiui of oxen." Precisely at this time, the Christian
A.B. m, martyrologies date the commencement of the
persecution under Aurelius. In Rome itself, Justin, the
apologist of Christianity, either in the same or in the
following year, ratified with his blood the sincerity of
his belief in the doctrines for which he had abandoned
the Gentile philosophy. His death is attributed to the
jealousy of Crescens, a Cynic, whose audience had been
drawn off by the more attractive tenets of the Christian
Platonist. Justin was summoned before Busticus, one
of the philosophic teachers of Aurelius, the prefect of

■ " I'eri^nnos ritus impleotrit." ]
Slid) gnmi the unconlestoi lauHug in

the Aiigiubia history ; yrt the Bingolar i

Ru4 that St Each n period the Emperar '

« foreign ritoi, sa well '

ho the Eroperor: '*If y&n

[

PEESKcrrrioN in asia mihoe.

135

the eity, and commanded to perform sacrifice. On hia
refusal, and open avowal of hia ChriBtianity, he was
scourged, and put to death. It is by no means impro-
bable that, during this crisia of religions terror, mandates
should have been issued to the provinces to imitate the
devotion of the capital, and everywhere to appease the
offended gods by sacrifice. Such an edict, though not
designating them by name, would, in its effects, and
perhaps in intention, expose the Christians to the malice
of their enemies. Even if the provincial governors were
left of their own accord to imitate the example of the
Emperor, their own zeal or loyalty would induce them
to fall in with the popular current. The lofty hu-
manity which would be superior at once to supersti-
tion, to interest, and to the deaire of popularity, and
which would neglect the opportunity of courting the
favour of the Emperor and the populace, would be a
rare and singular virtue upon the tribunal of a provin-
cial ruler.

The persecution raged with the greatest violence in
Asia Minor, It was here that the new edicts PeraMou™
were promulgated, so far departing from the niour.
humane regulations of the former Emperors, that the
prudent apologists venture to doubt their emanating
from the imperial authority.^ By these rescripts, the
delators were again let loose, and were stimulated by
the gratification of their rapacity out of the forfeited
goods of the Christian victims of persecution, as well as
of their revenge.

The fame of the aged Polycarp, whose death the
Borrowing Church of Smyrna related in an epistle to
the Christian community at Philomelium or Philadel-

136

PULYCAEP.

nhia, which is still extant, and bears every mark of
authentic ity,'^ has obscured that of the other
victims of Heathen malice or superstition. Of
these victims, the names of two ouly liave survived ;
one who manfully endured, the other who timidly
apostatised in the hour of trial. Germiinicus appeared ;
was forced to descend info the arena ; he fought gal-
lantly, until the merciful Proconsul entreated him to
consider his time of hfe. He then provoked the tardy
beast, and in an instant obtained bis immortality. The
impression on the wondering people was tliat of indig-
nation rather than of pity. The cry wna redoubled,
"Away with the godless! Let Polycarp be appre-
hended ! " The second, Quintus, a Phrygian, had
boastfully excited the rest to throw themselves in the
way of the persecution. He descended, in his haste,
iat^ the arena ; the first sight of the wild beasts so
overcame his hollow courage, that he consented to
sacrifice.

Polycarp was the most distinguished Christian of the
East; he had heard the Apostle St. John; he had long
presided, "with the most saintly dignity, over the see of
Smyrna. Polycarp neither ostentatiously exposed him-
sell', nor declined such measures for aecnrity as might
be consistent with his character. He consented to
retire into a neighbouring village, from which, on the
intelligence of the approach of the officers, he retreated
to another. His place of concealment being betrayed
by two slaves, whose confession had been extorted by
torture, he exclaimed, "The will of God be done;"
ordered fuod to be prepared for the officers of justice ;
and requested time for prayer, in which he spent two

HIS TEIAL.

137

iionrs. He waa placed upon an ass, and, on a day of
great public concourse, conducted towards the town.
He waa met by Herod the Irenarch and his fathpr
Nicet-as, wlio took the Bishop, with considerate respect,
into their own carriage, and vainly endeavoured to
persuade him to submit to the two teste by wliich the
Christiana were tried, the salutation of the Emperor by
the title of Lord, and sacrifice. On his determined
refusal, their compassion gave place to contumely ; he
was hastily thrast out of the chariot, and conducted to
the crowded stadium. On the entrance of the old man
upon the public scene, the excited devotion of the
Christian spectators imagined that they heard a voice
from heaven, " Polycarp, be firm ! " The Heathen, in
their vindictive fury, shouted aloud, that Polycarp had
been apprehended. The merciful Proconsul entreated
him, in respect to hia old age, to dieguiBe his name.
He proclaimed aloud that ha was Polycai-p; the trial
proceeded. "Swear," they said, "by the Genius of
Ctesar; retract, and say, 'Away with the godless!'"
The old man gazed in sorrow at the frautic and raging
benches of the spectators, rising above each otiier, and,
with his eyes uphfted to heaven, said, "Away with the
godless I " The Proconaol urged him further — " Swear,
and I release thee ; blaspheme Christ." " Eighty and
six years have I served Christ, and He has never done
me wrong; how can I blaspheme my King, and my
Saviour?" The Proconsul again commanded him to
swear by the Genius of Cassar. Polycarp rephed, by
avowing himself a Christian, and by requesting a day to
be appointed on which he might explain before the
Proconsul the blameless tenete of Christianity. " Per-
suade the people to consent," rephed the compassionate
but overawed ruler. " We owe respect to authority ;

138 POLYCaKFS PEATER FOB HIS ESEMIES. BoMi,.

to thee I will explain the reasons of my conduct ; to the
populace 1 will make no explanation." The old man
knew too well tlie ferocious passions raging in their
minds, which it had heen vain to attempt to aUay by
the rational arguments of Christianity. The Proconsul
threatened to expose him to the wild beasts. "Tis
well for me to he speedily released from this life of
misery." He threatened to hurn him aliva "I fear
not the fire tiiat burns for a moment ; thon knowest not
that which burns for ever and ever." The Christian's
countenance was full of peace and joy, even when the
herald advanced into the midst of the assemblage, and
thrice proclaimed — " Polycarp has professed himself a
Christian I " The Jews and Heathens (for the former
were in great numbers, and especially infuriated against
the Christians) replied with an overwhelming shout,
" This is the teacher of all Asia, the oyerthrower of oiir
gods, who has perverted so many from sacrifice and the
adoration of the gods ! " They demanded of the Asiarch,
the president of the games, instantly to let loose a lion
upon Polycarp. The Asiarch excused himself by
alleging that the games were over. A general cry
arose that Polycarj) should be burned alive. The Jews
were ^aiu as vindictively active as the Heathens in
collecting the fuel of the baths, and other combuBtibles,
to raise up a hasty yet capacious funeral pile. He was
speedily iinrobed ; he requested not to be nailed to the
stake ; he was only bound to it.

The calm and unostentatious prayer of Polycarp may,
bo considered as embodying the sentiments of the
Christians of that period. " Lord God Almighty, the
Father of thy well-beloved and ever-blessed Son Jesus
Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of
thee ; the fJod of augels, powers, and of every ci-eatnre

HIS lURTTBROM.

rtjBiP. vn.
BLad of the whole race of the right«oiia who live before
thee, I thank thte that thou hast graciously thought me
woithy of thia day and this hour, that I may receive a
portion in the number of thy martyrs, and drink of
Christ's cup, for the resurrection to eternal life, both of
body and soul, in the incorruptibleness of the Holy
Spirit ; among whom may I be admitted this day, as a
rich and acceptable sacrifice, as thou, true and
faithful G!od, hast prepared, and foreshown, and accom-
plished. Wherefore I praise thee for all thy mercies ;
I bless thee ; I glorify thee, with the eternal and

I heavenly Jesus Clirist, thy beloved Son, to whom, with
thee and the Holy Spirit, be glory now and for ever."
The fii-e wiis kindled in vain. It arose curving hke
an arch around the serene victim, or, like a sail awelhng
with the wind, left the body unharmed. To the sight
of the Christians, he resembled a treasure of gold or

t silver (an allusion to the gold tried in the furnace);
and delicious odours, as of myrrh or frankincense,
breathed from his body. An executioner was sent in to
despatch the victim ; his side was pierced, and blood
enough flowed from the aged body to extinguish the
flames immediately around him.'

»The whole of this narrative has the genuine energy
of truth : the prudent yet resolute conduct of the aged
bishop ; the calm and dignified expostulation of the
governor ; the wild fury of the populace ; the Jews
eagerly seizing the opportunity of renewing their un-
slaked hatred to the Christian name, are described with
the simplicity of nature. Tiie supernatural part of the

EARTHQUAKE AT 8MTRWV

BdokQ.

transaction is no more than may be ascribed to the
bigb-wrought imagination of the Chriatian spectators,
deepening every casual incident into a wonder : the
voice from lieaven, heard only by Christian ears ; the
flame from the hastily piled wood, arching over the
unharmed body ; the grateftil otioni-s, not impossibly
from ai-omatic woods, wliieh were used to warm the
hatha of the more luxurious, and wiiich were collected
for the sudden execution ; the effusion of blood, which
might excite wonder from the decrepit frame of a man
at least a hundred years old,' Even the vision of
Polycarp himself,' by which be was foriiwamed of his
approaching fate, was not unlikely to arise before his
mind at that perilous crisis. Polycarp closed the
nameless train of Asiatic martyrs."

Some few years alter, the city of Smyrna was visited
with a terrible earthquake ; a generous sympathy was
displayed by the inbabitants of the neighbouring cities ;
pravisioDS were poured in from all quarters; homes
were offered to the houseless; carriages famished to
convey the infirm and the children from the scene of
ruin. They received the fugitives as if they had been
their parents or children. The rich and the poor vied
in the offlces of charity; and, in the words of the
Grecian sophist, thought that they were receiving rather
than conferring a favour.* A Christian historian may

■ Aoconling to thn gicn
mfurs, Ladj- MnebctliB diwondl mc- 1
morj' IB haQated with a Elniilar cir

" Who would have thought the oli
mun to hart hud ed modi blood u
him ? "—macbtth, act t, a. 1.
' The difficulty nf aciuiaWlj n

CHi». Vn. KELlGinUS EXCITEMENT OF THE PEHIOD. 141

be excused if he discerns in this humane conduct the
manifest progress of Christian benevoleace; and that
benevolence, if not unfairly ascribed to the influence of
Christianity, is heightened by the recollection that the
sufferers were those whose amphitheatre had so recently
been stained with the blood of the aged martyr. If,
instead of beholding the retributive hand of Divine
vengeance in the smouldering ruins of the city, the
Christiana hastened to alleviate the common miseries of
Christian and of Pagan with equal zeal and liberality, it
is impossible not to trace at once the extraordinary revo-
lution in the sentiments of mankind, and the purity
of the Christianity which was thus superior to those pas-
sions which have so often been fatal to its perfections

At this period of enthusiastic excitement — of Super-
stition on the one hand, returning in unreasomiig terrcff
to ita forsaken gods, and working itself up by every
means to a consolatory feeling of the Divine protection ;
of Eeligion, on the other, relying in humble confidence
on the protection of an allruling Providence ; when the
religions parties were, it might seem, aggrandising theii
rival deities, and tracing their conflicting powers
throughout the whole course of human affairs — ^to every
mind each extraordinary event would he deeply coloured
with supernatural influence ; and whenever any circum-
stance really bore a providential or miraculous appear-
ance, it would be ascribed by each party to the favouring
interposition of its own god.

8uch was the celehnited event which was long current
in Christian history as the miracle of the thundering le-
gion." Heathen historians, medals atill extant, and the

' Ses Mejie's Wr-ks, toI. ii. Compare Hnuth, Reliq. Sbotie, I. 153, witt

142 MIEACLE OP THE THONDEEINQ UIQIOS. Book D.

column which bears the name of Ankinimis at. Rome,
Miradcotuie concuT With Christian tradition in commemo-
uaHuL rating the extraordinary deliverance of the

ftoman anny, during the war with the German nations,
from a situation of the utmost peril and difliculty. If the
Christians at any time served in the Imperial armies ' —
if militaiy service was a question, as seems extremely
probable, which divided the early Christiana,' some
considering it too closeJy connected with the idolatrous
practices of an oath to the fortunes of Ciesar and with
the worship of the standards, which were to the rest of
the army, as it were, the household gods of battle;
while others were less rigid in their practice, and forgot
their piety in their allegiance to their sovereign and
their patriotism to their country — at no time were the
Christians more likeiy to overcome their scruples than
at this critical period. The armies were recruited by
unprecedented means ; and many Christians, wlio would
before have hesitated to enrol themselves, might less
reluctantly submit to the conscription, or even think
themselves justified in engaging in what appeared
necessary and defensive warfare. There might then
liave been many Christians in the armies of M. Aurelius,
— but that they formed u whole separate legion, is
manifestly the fiction of a later age. In the campaign
of the year of our Lord 174, the army advanced in-
cautiously into a country entirely without water ; and,
in this faint and enfeebled state, was exposed to a
formidable attack of the whole barbarian force. Sud-
denly, at their hour of most extreme distress, a copious

• TertalliHd, in n pnssnge alrmdy r ' Neaader haa developed iliia notion
quoled, stales distlocUjr, " militamut with his uemd nhllity, in thi> part of.
I hia Hisloij of tlie Church. '

CiiiP. VII. CHKISTIAN. ABD PAGAN, VIEW THEliEOF. 1*3

and refreshing raiu came down, which supplied their
wants ; and while their half-recmited strength was still
iU able to oppose the onset of the enemy, a tremendous
storm, with lightning, and hailstones of an enormous
size, drove full upon the adversary, and rendered hia
army an easy conquest to the reviving Romans.'' Of
this awful yet seasonable interposition, the whole army
acknowledged the preternatural, the Divine, origin. By
those of darker superstition, it was attributed to the
incantations of the magician Amupliis, who controlled
the elements to the ser^^ice of the Emperor. The
medals struck on the occasion, and the votive column
erected by Marcus himself, render homage to the esta-
blished deities, to Mercury and to Jupiter." The more
rational Pagans, with a flatteiy which received the
suffrage of admiring posterity, gave the honour to the
virtues of Marcus, which demanded tliia signal favour
from approving Heaven." The Christian, of course,
looked alone to that One Almighty God whose pro-
vidence ruled the whole course of nature, and saw the
secret operation of his own prayers meeting witJi the
favourable acceptance of the Most High.' " While the
Fagane ascribed the honour of this deliverance to their
own Jove," writes Tertullian, "they unknowingly bore
testimony to the Christians' God."

' In the year afler this victory

De Seip=Q (lib. i. c. 6), >llow> that he

(A.D. 175), the farmidable rebellion of

had the magiciaa Amuphis in his

Ariiius C»s>iuji ditlurhfii the East,

anil added to the perils and embamus-

meats of the Empire.

AimavDre [ifds, MO. quid leor, omas

• Mercury, according to P^, ap-

Olwq^l^ MucI nor™ pome™ meml

i«ars on one of Ihe cdna relatine to

thi» STent, Compars Reading's BOle

» In Jovis nomlae Deo nostro teati-

ID Roulh, loo. cit.

moniuin rtddidiU TertuUIwi, Ad Sca-

' Lunpridius (In tiL} attributes

pulam, p, 20. Euieb. Hist. Eccl.

thsTktotylotheChaldeuu. UuDUi,

T. 5,

MABTTBS OF YIENNS.

BooKlI.

The latter end of the reign of Marcus Aorelius' "was
signalised by another scene of martyrdom, in a part of
the empire far distant from that where persecution had
before raged with the greatest violence, though not
altogether disconnected from it by the original descent
of the sufferers.*

The Christians of Lyons and Vienne appear to have
Martynof bccn a rcligious colony from Asia Minor or
Aj). itT. Phrygia, and to have maintained a close cor-
respondence with those distant communitiea There is
something remarkable in the connexion between these
regions and the East. To this district the two Herods,
Archelaus and Herod Antipas, were successively ba-
nished ; and it is singular enough, that Pontius Pilate,
after his recall from Syria, was exiled to the same
neighbourhood.

There now appears a Christian community, cor-
responding in Greek with the mother Church.** It is by
no means improbable that a kind of Jewish settlement
of the attendants on the banished sovereigns of Jud»a
might have been formed in the neighbourhood of
Vienne and Lyons, and maintained a friendly, no doubt
a mercantile, connexion with their opulent brethren of
Asia Minor, perhaps through the port of Marseilles.
Though Christianity does not appear to have penetrated

If I had determined to force the
eyeDts of this period into an accordance
with my own view of the pei'secutions
of M. Anrelius, I might hare adopted
the chronology of Dodwell, who
assigns the martyrs of Lyons to the
year 1 67 ; hut the evidence seems in
fikTour of the later date, 177. See
Moehcim. Laxdner, who commands
authority, if not hy his critical

city, hy his scrapulons honesty, says,
**Nor do I expect that any learned
man, who has a concern for his repo-
tation as a writer, should attempt a
direct coofotation of this opinion.**
Works, 4to edit. i. 360.

« Euseh. Hist £oc y. 1.

^ £pistola Viennenaium at Lug*
dunemiam, ia Routh, i. 163.

tSAPkVlI. GENERAL ATTACK ON THE CDRISTL^'S,

145

into Gaiil till rather a late period,' it may havo tra-
velled by the same conrae, and have been pi-opagated
in the Jewish settlement by converts from Phrygia or
Asia Minor. Its Jewish origin is, perhaps, confirmed
by its adherence to the Judaeo-ChriMtian tenet of
abstinence from blood,*

The commencement of this dreadful, thongli local,
persecution was an ebullition of popular fury. It was
about the period when the German war, which had
slumbered during some years of precarious peace, again
threatened to disturb the repose of the empire. Southern
Ganl, though secure beyond the Rhine, was yet at no
great distance from the incursions of the German
tribes ; and it ia possible that personal apprehensions
might mingle with the general fanatic terror, which
exasperated the Heathens against their Christian fellow-
citizeus. The ChriBtians were on a sudden exposed to
a general attack of the populace. Clamours soon grew
to personal violence ; they were struck, dragged about
the streets, plundered, stoned, shut up in their houses,
until the more merciful hostility of the ruling autho-
rities gave orders for their arrest and imprisonment
uutil tiie arrival of the governor. One man of birth
gnd rank, Vettius Epagathus. boldly undertook their
defence against t!ie vague chaises of atheism and
impiety: he was charged with being himself a Christian,
and fearlessly admitted the honourable accusation. 'Die
greater part of the Cliristiau community adliered reso-

TerlulUan

Apology, ch. 9, on

cxpranioD of b ChristiBD vriUr, Sul-

Origen oo

titiB CelBum, vlii. : fT»iTi

pidiiu ScTcrus.

pp«B» thiLt this abitiBrou

^ "How coll thnse eat Infants tu

generol uoong the ovl

irhom It Is not lawful lo eat the hlood

ChdUiaus

•f brutes?" Comprire. liuwevK

VOL. II.

146 HE4THR>' CBCELTIES. Bo

lutely to their belief; the few vrhose coun^ failed ia j
lUe hour of trial, aod who purchased their security bj |
shameful gubmission, ncverthele^ did not abandon their j
wore courageous and suffering brethren, but, at con- 1
giderable personal danger, continued to alleviate their J
Bufferings by kindly offices. Some Heathen slaves «
at length compelled, by the dread of torture, to conflnn I
the odious chaiges which were so generally advanced *
against the Christians : — banquets on human flesh ;
promiscuous and incestuous concubinage; Thyestean
leasts, and CEdipodean weddings. The extorted ccm-
fessions of these miserable men exasperated even the
more moderate of the Heathens, while the ferocious
populaf:e had now free scope for their sanguinary
cruelty. The more distinguished victims were Banctus,
a deacon of Vieune ; a new convert named Matums,
and Attalus, of Phrygian descent, from the city of
Pergamus. They were first tortured by means too
horrible to describe — if, without such description, the
biurbttrity of the persecutors, and the heroic endurance
of the Christiau martyrs, conld be justly represented.
Many perished in the suffocating air of the noisome
dungeons ; many had their feet strained to dislocation
in the stocks ; the more detested victims, after all
other means of torture were exhausted, had hot plates
of iron placed upon the most sensitive parts of their
bodies.

Among these victims was the aged Bishop of Lyons.
Pothinus, now in hia uiuetieth year, who died in prison
after two days from the ill usage which he had received
from the populace. His feeble body liad failed, but his
mind remained intrepid; when the frantic rabble
environed him with their insults, and demanded, with con-
tumelious cries, "Who is the God of the Christians?'

1. MAHTYEDOM OF BLANDINA. 147

[ he calmly replied, " Wert thou worthy, thou shouldst

low."

But the amphitheatre was the great public scene of
popular barbarity and of Chriatiau endurance. The
martyrs were exposed to wild beasts), wliich, liowever,
do not seem to have been permitted to despatch their
miserable victims), and made to sit in a heated iron
chair till their flesh reeked upwards with an offensive
stench.

A rescript of the Emperor, instead of allaying the
popular frenzy, gave ample licence to its uncontrolled
violence. Those who denied the iaith were to be re-
leased ; those who persisted in it, condemned to death.

But the most remai'kable incident in this fearful and
afflicting scene, and the most characteristic of MHiyrtoro
the social change which Christianity had "fB""""!^
begun to ¥0111, was this, tLat the chief hoaourg of this
memorable martyrdom were assigned to a female, a
slave. Even the Christians themselves scarcely appear
aware of the deep and universal influence of their own
sublime doctrines. The mistress of Blandina, herself a
martjT, trembled leat the weak body, and still more
the debased condition, of tiie lowly associate in her trial,
might betray her to criminal concession. Blandina
shared in all tJio most excruciating suflerings of the
most distinguished victims ; she equalled them in the
calm and unpretending superiority to every pain which
malice, irritated and licensed, as it wei^e, to exceed, if
it were possible, ite own barbarities on the person of a
slave, could invent. She was selected by the pectilinr
vengeance of the persecutors, whose astonishment pro-
bably increased their malignity, for new and unprece-
dented tortures, which she bore with the same equablp
inaguauimity.

148 FURTHER MARTYRDOMS. Book H

Blandina was first led forth with Sanctns, Matnms,
and Attalus; and, no doubt, the ignominy of their
public exposure was intended to be heightened by their
association with a slave. The wearied executionerR
wondered that her life could endure under the horrid
succession of torments which thev inflicted. Blandina's
only reply was, " I am a Christian, and no wickedness
is practised among us."

In the amphitheatre, she was suspended to a stake,
while the combatants, Maturus and Sanctus, derived
vigour and activity from the tranquil prayers which she
uttered in her agony ; and the less savage wild beasts
kept aloof from their prey. A third time she was
brought forth, for a public exhibition of suffering, with
a youth of fifteen, named Ponticus. During every kind
of torment, her language and her example animated the
courage and confirmed the endurance of the boy, who at
length expired under the torture. Blandina rejoiced at
the approach of death, as if she had been invited to a
wedding banquet, and not thrown to the wild beasts.
She was at length released. After she had been
scourged, placed in the iron chair, enclosed in a net,
and, now in a state of insensibility, tossed by a bull,
some more merciful barbarian transpierced her with a
sword. The remains of all these martyrs, after lying
long unburied, were cast into the Rhone, in order
to mock and render still more improbable their hopes
of a resurrection.

of M. j\areliii9.

SocH was the state of Christianity at the cominencemeiit
of the fourth period between ita first promul- y,„,^
gatioQ and its establishment under CouBtantine. '*"^'
The golden daya of the lloman Empire had alreadj
begun to darken, and closed for ever with the reign of
Marcus the Philosopher. The empire of the world be-
came the prize of bold adventure, or the precarious gilt
of a lawless soldiery. During little more than K»pid me-
a century, from the accession of Commodus to Emperors
that of Diocletian, more than twenty Emperors ut.
(not to mention the pageants of a day, and the compe-
titors for the throne who retained a temporary authority
over some single province) flitted like shadows along
the tragic scene of the imperial palace. A long line
of military adventurers, often eti-angers to the name,
to the race, to the language of Eome — Africans and
Syrians, Arabs and Goths — seized the quickly shifting
sceptre of the world. The change of sovereign «aH
almost always a change of dynasty ; or, by some strange
fatality, every attempt to re-establish an hereditary
succession was thwarted by the vices or imbecility of
the second generation. JVT. Aurelius is succeeded bj'
the brutal Commodus ; the vigorous and able Sevenia
by the fratricide CaracaUa. One of the imperial his-
torians has made the melancholy observation, that of
the great men of Kome scarcely one left a son the heir
virtues ; they had either died without offspring,

150

T CHRISTUNITT.

ootIP

or had left such heira, that it had been better for man-
kind if they had died leaving no posterity.'

In the weakness and insecurity of the throne lay
iniecnrity the strength and safety of Christianity,
ihime ft- During snch a period, no eystematic policy
"cttriiti- ^^^ pursued in any of the leading internal
'""'■ interests of the empire. It was a government

of temporary expedients, of individual passions. The
first and commanding object of each succeeding head
of a dynasty was to secure his contested throne, and to
i;entre upon himself the wavering or divided allegiance
of the provinces. Many of the Emperors were deeply
and inextricably involved in foreign wars, and had no
time to devote to the social changes within the pale of
the empire. The tumults or the terrors of tlie German,
or Gothic, or Persian inroad, eS'ected a perpetual diver-
sion from the alow and silent intfitnal aggressions of
Christianity, The frontiers constantly and imperiously
demanded the presence of the Emperor, and left him
no leisure to attend to the feeble remonstrances of the
neglected priesthood. The dangers of the ciWl absorbed
those of the religious constitution. Thus Christianity
had another century of regular and progressive ad-
vancement to arm itself for the inevitable collision with
the temporal authority, till, in the reign of Diocletian, it
iiad grown far beyond the power of the moat unlimited
and arbitrary despotism to arrest its invincible progress ;
and Constantine, whatever the motives of his conversion,
no doubt adopted a wise and judicious policy in securing
the alliance of, rather than continuing the strife with, an

■ Neminem props mn^norum vira- I erimt plprique, uc rneliils fueriC de
viim DptiTiiDm et uUlem filium reli- rebiia humnnis sine posteiiUlc di»^e-

liheiii Tlrf inlei'ifnmt, aut tales hsbu- | p. 360,

[

CAUSES OP PERSECDTIOHS. Ifil

adversary which divided the wealth, the intellect, if not
the property and the population, of the empire.

The persecutions which took place during this interval
were the hasty conseqneneea of the personal
hostility of the Emperors, not the mature and periMu-
deliberate policy of a regular and permanent during uiij
government. In general, the vices and the
detestable characters of the perseeutore would tend to
vindicate the innocence of Christianity, and to enlist
the sympathies of mankind in its favour, rather than to
deepen the general animosity. Christianity, which had
received the respectful homage of Alexander Sevemn,
could not lose in public estimation by being exposed
to the gladiatorial fury of Maximin, Some of the
Emperors were almost as much strangers to the gods as
to the people and to the senate of Home. They seemeil
to take a reckless delight in violatmg the ancieut
majesty of the Roman religion. Foreign superstitions,
almost equally new, and scarcely less offensive to the
general sentiment, received the public, the pre-eminent
homage of the Emperor. Commodus, though the Gre-
cian Hercules was at once liis model, his type, and hia
deity, was an ardent votary of the Isiac mysteries ; and
at the Syrian worship of the Sun, in all its foreign and
Oriental pomp, Elagabalus commanded the attendance
of the trembling senate.

If Marcus Aurelius was, as it were, the last effort
of expiring Polytheism, or rather of ancient comnioitiii.
philosophy, to produce a perfect man accord- lea.'
iug to the highest ideal conception of human reason.
the brutal Commodus might appear to retrograde to the
eavage periods of society. Commodus was a gladiator
on the throne ; and if the mind, humanised either bj'
the milder spirit of the times, or by the incipient

152 HEION AND CHAR4CTER OF COMM0DU3. BooilL

influence of Cliristianity, had begun to turn in distaste
from the horrible spectacles which flooded the arena with
human carnage, tlie disgust would be immeaaurabljr
deepened by the appearance of the Emperor aa the I
chief actor in these sanguinary aceues. Even Nero'a
theatrical exhibitions had something of the elegance of
a polished age ; the actor in one of the noble tragedies
nf ancieut Greece, or even the accomplished musician,
might derogate from the dignity of an Emperor, yet
might, in some degree, excuse the unaeemliness of his ■
pursuits by their intellectual character. But the amuse- j
mentB and public occupations of Commodus hiul long |
been consigned by the general contempt and abhorrenca
to the meanest of mankind, to barbarians and slaves ;
and were as debasing to the civilised man as unbecom-
ing ill the head of the empire.'' Tlie courage which
Oommodus displayed in confronting the hundred lions
which were let loose in the arena, and fell by his shafts
(though in fact the Imperial person was cftrefiiUy . i
guarded i^iast real danger), and the skill with which |
ha clave with an arrow the slender neck of the girafTe,
might have commanded the admiration of a flatffii'ing
court. But when he appeared as a gladiator, gloried
in the acta, and condescended to receive the disgraceful
pay of a profession so infamous as to degrade for ever
the man of rank or character wlio had been forced
upon the stage by the tyranny of former Emperors, the
courtiers, who had been bred in the severe and dignified
school of the Philosopher, must have recoiled with
shame, and approved, if not envied, the more rigid
principles of the Chriatiaua, which kept them aloof from
such degrading spectacles. Commodus was an avowed

BEIPICATION OF COMMODUS.

Ifi3

■proeelyte of the Egyptian religion, but liia favourite god
was the Grecian Hercules. He usurped the attributes
and placed bis own head on the etatuea of tbia deity,
which was the impersonation, as it were, of brute force
and corporeal strength. But a deity which might com-
mand adoration in a period of primseTal bai'bariBiu,
when man lives in a state of perilous warfare with the
beasts of the forest, in a more intellectual age sinks to
his proper level. He might be the appropriate god of
a gladiator, but not of a Koman Emperor."

Everything which tended to desecrate the popular
religion to the feeliugs of the more enlightened and
intellectual must have strengthened the cause of Chris-
tianity; the more the weaker parts of Paganism, and
those most alien to the prevailing sentiment of the
times, were obtruded on the public view, the more they
must bave contributed to the advancement of that faith
which was rapidly attaining to the full growth of a rival
to the established religion. The subsequent deification
of Commodus, under the reign of Sevenia, in wanton
resentment against the senate,* prevented his odious
memory from sinking into oblivion. His insults upon
the more rational part of the existing religion could no
longer be forgotten, as merely emanating from his
persomJ character, Commodus advanced into a god,
after his death, brought disrepute upon the whole
Polytheism of the empire. Christianity was perpetually.

' In I

f ragmen

M. Mni there ia i
epigram ptnoted igainat the nsfiuin
;iaa nf the nttributcs of Hercules I
Commodua. The Cmpcmr hod plac
hit own bead on the colnSBal ttatne
Hercules, with the inscription — *' L
dui CommDduB Hercules."

The point is not verf clear, but itaeemi
ta be a protHt of tbe God ngainet being
confounded with the Emperor. Mai,
' Fmgm. Vatic, ii. 225.

li S™eru», Hilt. Au^

154 EEIGN OF SEVEHnS.

as it were, at hand, and ready to profit by every fevoni"'
able juncture. By a siogular accident, the
Cotnniodus was personally less inimically disposer! to
the Christians than his wise and amiable father. Kis
favourite concubine, Marcia, in some manner connected
M'ith the Cliristians, mitigated the barbarity of Iiis tfim-
per, and restored to the persecuted Christians a long
and unbroken peace, which had been perpetually inter-
rupted by the hostility of the populace, and the edicts
of the Government in the former reign, Christianity
had no doubt been rigidly repelled from the precincts
of the court during tlie life of Marcus, by the predomi-
nance of the philosophic faction. From this period, a
Christian party occasionally appears in Rome. Many
families of distinction and opulence professed Christian
tenets, and the religion is sometimes found iu connexion
with the Imperial family. Still Rome, to the last, 6eemH
to have been the centre of the Pagan interest, though
other causes will hereafter appear for this curious fact
in the conflict of the two religions,

SeveruB wielded the sceptre of the world with the
Reign of vigour of the older Empire. But his earlier
»!bmiuio years were occupied in the establishment of
^"'- his power over the hostile factions of liis com-

petitors, and by his Eastern wars ; his latter by the
settlement of the remote province of Britain,' Severus
was at one time the protector, at another the persecutor,
of Christiauity. Local circumstances appear to have
influenced his conduct, on both occasions, to the Chris-
tian party. A Christian named Proculua, a dependent,
probably, upon his favourite freed slave Evodus, bad
been so fortunate as to restore Severus to health by

rNPANCT OF CAHACALLA.

anointing him with oil, and was received into the Im-
perial family, in which he retained his honourftble
situation till his death. Not improbably through the
same connexion, a Christian nnrse and a Christian pre-
ceptor formed the disposition of the yonng inrsmyot
Caracalla ; and, till the natural ferocity of his ^""^
character ripened under the fatal infinence of jealous
ambition, fraternal hatred, and unbounded power, the
gentleness of liis manners and the sweetness of bis
temper enchanted and attached his family, his friends,
the senate, and the people of Rome. The people be-
held with satisfaction the infant pupil of Christianity
turning; aside his bead and weeping at the barbarity
of the ordinary public spectacles, in whieb criminals
were exposed to wild beasts/ The Christian interest at
the court repressed the occasional outbursts of popular
animosity: many Christians of rank and distinction
enjoyed the avowed favour of the Emperor, Their se-
curity may partly be attributed to their calm determi-
nation not to mingle themselves up with the contending
factions for the empire. During the conflict
of parties, they bad refused to espouse the dictQitte

n-.vT .11- Ti- 1 CtriallADS.

cause of either JNiger or Albmus. Ketired
within tbemselves, they rendered their prompt aud
cheerful obedience to the mhng Emperor. The impla-
cable vengeance which Severus wreaked on the senate
for their real or suspected inclination to the party of
Albinus, his remorseless execution of so many of the
noblest of the aristocracy, may have placed in a stronger
light the happier fortune, and commended the unim-
peachable loyalty, of the Christians. The provincial
governors, as usual, reflected the example of the court ;

156 PERSECUTION IN THE EAST. DookU.

Bome adopted merciful expedients to avoid the necessity
of carrying the laws into effect against those Christians
who were denounced before their tribimals; whilo the
more venal humanity of others extorted a considerable
profit from the Christians for their security. The un-
lawful religion, in many places, purchased its peace at
the price of a regular tax, wliich was paid by other
illegal, aud mostly infamous, professions. This traffia
with the authorities was sternly denounced by some of
the more ardent believers, as degrading to the religion,
and as an ignominious barter of the hopes and glories of
martyrdom.*

Such was the flourishing and peaceful state of Chris-
Ffiwcniion tianity during the early part of the reign of
iniiioE«u ggverus. In the East, at a later period, lie
embraced a sterner policy. During the conflict with
Niger, the Samaritans had efipouaed the losing,
the Jews the successful, party. The edicts of
Severua were, on the whole, favourable to the Jews, but
the prohibition to circumcise proselytes was re-enacted
during his residence in Syria, in the tenth year of his
reign. The same prohibition against the admission of
new proselytes wa-i extended to the Christians. But
chriitimiw this edict may have been intended to allay the
cui^iTiha violence of the hostile factions in Syria. Of
"^*"' the persecution tinder Severus there are few,

if any, traces in the West," It is confined to Syria,

f Sed quid Don timiditaa [wsiuide-

TertoU. De Fugl, c. 13.

bit, quasi et I'ugere Bcnpluro permit-

> « Nou. nn tranmos rien de (onsidB-

tat, el i-edimere p.-sjcipial Sescio

rable louohonl lea nartTra que la pw-

dolmdnm an erubwcmdum sit eum io

seeuUon de SerSre a pu ftire i Stmt

eteallalie." Tillemoiit. St-Andeole,

and the other martyis iu Goul (TOIe-

bdnarum et aleonea st lenonea, Chrta-

mont, p. 160), are of man than suapi.

Chaf. VIII. TUE EMPEKOR VISITS EGYPT. 157

perhaps to Cappadocia, to Eijypt, and to Africa ; and,

in the latter provinces, appeare as the act of hostile
governors, proceeding upi)u the existing laws, rather
than the consequence of any recent edict of the Em-
peror. The Syrian Eusebiaa may have exaggerated
local acts of oppression, of which the sad traces were
recorded in bis native country, iTito a general persecu-
tion : he admits that Alexandria was the chief scene of
Christian suffering. The date and the scene p„ii,bie
of the persecution may lend a clue to itsorigin. """^
From Syria, the Emperor, exactly at this time, pro-
ceeded to Egypt. He surveyed, with wondei^
ing interest, the monuments of Eg}T)tian glory
and of Egyptian superstition,' the temples of Memphis,
the Pyramids, the Labyrinth, the Memnoaiiiim. The
plague alone prevented him from contiuuinj; his excur-
sions into Ethiopia. The dark and relentless raind of
SeveniB appears to have been strongly impressed with
the religion of Serapis, In either character, as the great
Pantheistic deity, which absorbed the attributes and
functions of all the more ancient gods of Egypt, or with
his more limited attribntes, as the Pluto of their my-
thology, the lord of the realm of departed spirits, Serapis"
was likely to captivate the imagination of Severus, and
to suit those gloomier moods in which he delighted in
brooding over the secrets of futurity ; and, having
realised the proud proi^ostics of greatness, which his
youth had watched with hope, now began to dwell on
the darker omens of decline and dissolution.™ The
hour of imperial favour was likely to be seized by the

' Spartian. Hist Aug. p. 553. i rqnsultiug the gutabiography of tbo

'- CDmpAreDe Guigniaut, SerapiB et Emprot SeTemn. Hid time but

Ml OrigiDc. I iptticd UB th> arigiDBl, uid taken tilt

" Smrtum hod the ndvantagp of [ whole Augustan hlatary in eichao^ I

158

PER3ECDT10M IN ALEXANDRIA. Book II

Egyptian priesthood to obtain the mastery and to wreak
their revenge on this new foreign religion, which
making such rapid progress throughout the provinces
and the whole of Africa. Whether or not the Emperor
actually autJiorised the persecution, his countenance
would strengthen the Pagan interest, and encourage
the obsequious Prefect" in adopting violent meaaures.
Lsetus would be vindicating the religion of the Emperor
in asserting the superiority of Serapia ; and the supe-
riority of Serapia could be by no means so effectually
. by the oppression of his most powerful
, Alexandria was the ripe and pregnant soil
of religions feud and deadly animosity. Three hostile
parties divided the city — the Jews, the Pagans, and the
ChristianB. They were perpetually blending and modi-
fying each other's doctrines, and forming schools in
which Judaism allegorised itself into Platonism, and
Platonism, having assimilated itself to the higher Egyp-
tian mytliology, soared into Christianity ; and thus Plsr-
tonio Christianity, from a religion, became a mystio
philosophy. They all awaited, nevertheless, the signal
for persecution, and for licence to draw off in sanguinary
factions, and to settle the controversies of the schools
by bloody tumults in the streets." The perjietual syn-
cretism of opinions, instead of leading to peace and
charity, seemed to inflame the deadly animosity; and
the philosophical spirit, \vhich attempted to blend all

- His name was L«iu«. liruebim,

ln9cloth«<. Tl

eboTofsevenieaisent

Hist. Ecd. vi. 2.

a letter to hia

father, entimfiag him

• Imuidis, 1]k father of OrigcD,

paroilal afleclioQ for

peiiihed iu this peiseeulion. Or%™

himself and hi

ail brathera to shu.d

wu kept swa; from joining him id his

in hb wy of

bUiBlng; the nmrtyr'.

«own. F-ustb

vi. 3. The propertj

martyrdom, only bjr thr prudent strn-

DfLmnidMwuB

coTiHatalfd to llwiir

p.»l tm«.rr.

Ibid.

ZBAt. VllJ. STATE OF THE AFEICAN CHURCH. 159

the higher doctrineB into a lofty Eclectic system, had
111) effect in harmoniMiiig- the miiida of the diflerent sect"
to mutual toleratiou and amity. It was now the triumph
of Paganism. The controversy with Cbristlanity was
carried ou by burning the priests and torturing the
virginsj until the catechetical or elementary schools oi'
learning, by which the Alexandrian Christians trained up
their pupils for the reception of their more mysterious
doctrines, were deserted. The young Origen alone
laboured, with indefatigable and successful activity, to
supply the void caused by the general desertion of the
persecuted teachers. ^

The African Prefect followed the example of Ltetus
in Egj-pt. In no part of the Koman Empire
had Christianity taken more deep and perma-
nent root than in the province of Africa, then crowded
with rich and populous eities, and forming, with Egypt,
the granary of the Western world ; but which many
centuries of Ghristian i'eud, Vandal invasion, and Mo-
hammedan barbarism, have blasted to a thinly-peopled
desert Up to this period, this secluded region had gone
on advancing in its uninterrupted course of civilization.
Since the battle of Thapsua, the AlHcan province had
stood aloof i'rom tlic tumults and desolation which
attended the changes in the imperial dynasty. As yet
it had raised no competitor for the empire, though
Severus, the ruling monarch, was of African descent.
The single legion, which was considered adequate to
protect the remote tranquillity of the province from the
occasional incursions of the Moorish tribes, had been
foand BufBcient for its purpose. The Paganism of the
Afirican cities was probably weaker than in other parts

160

AFRICAN CHRISTIAXITT.

of the empire. It had no ancient and sacred associft- ■]
tions with national pride. The new cities had raised |
new temples, to gods foreign to the region. The religion J
of Carthage,* if it bad not entirely perished with the I
final destruction of the city, maintained but a feeUe |
hold upon the Italiauised inhabitant?. The Carth^«ft ]
of the Empire was a Roman city. IfChristianitytended |
to mitigate the fierce spirit of the inhabitants of these '
burning regions, it acquired itaelf a depth and impaa-
eioned vehemence, which perpetmilly broke through all
restrainls of moderation, charity, and peace. From
TertuUian to Augustine, the climate seems to be working
into the language, into the essence of Christianity.
Here disputes maddened into feuds ; and feuds, which,
in other countries, were allayed by time, or died away ■
of themselves, grew into obstinate, implacable, and |
irreconcileable factions.

African Christianity had no communion with the I
AWcm dreamy and speculative genius of the East. It I
chruiiMiij-. gtgrnly rejected the wild and poetic imperson»- I
tions, the daring cosmogonies, of the Gnostic sects:
was severe, simple, jiractical, in its creed ; it governed |
by its strong and imperious hold upon the feelings, by ,
profound and agilating emotiou. It eagerly received
the rigid asceticism of the anti -materialist system, while ■ I
it disdained the fantastic theories by which that system j
accounted for the origin of evil. The imagination had i
another office than that of following out its own fantastic ■ 1
creations; it spoke directly to the feare and to the I

« Cf>inp.ire Muntn-, l^elig. der Cur-
Ihager. The worship of ihe Dm ao-
Iwlis, the Q^«n of Hmv«i, shoold
pn-haps be ei«j>l«d. See, forward,
the rgiga of Elnpibniiis. En

fifth oaturj the Queen of Haven,
Hccording Id ^iTinn ([>e Gubenuttioiu
Dei, lib. viii.), >hii«) with Cbriat tba
vorahip of Carthage.

PCkap. Vtll. UONTANISM.

^M passioiui ; it delighted in realising the terrors of the
^r final Judgement; in arraying, in the most appalling
language, the gloomy mysteries of future retribution.
Tiiis character appears in the dark splendour of Ter-
tnllian's writings ; engages liim in contemptuous and
relentless warfare against the Gnostic opinions, and
their latest and most dangerous champion, Marcion;
till, at length, it hardens into the severe, yet simpler,
enthusiasm of Montanism. It appears, allied with the
stern assertion of occlesiiistical order and sacerdotal
domination, in the earnest and zealous Cyprian ; it is
still manifestly working, though in a chastened and
loftier form, in the deep and impassioned, but compre-
hensive, mind of Augustine.

Tertuilian alone belongs to the present period, and
Tertuliian is, perhaps, the representative and the perfect
type of this AfricaniBm. It is among the most remark-
able illustratiojis of the secret unify which connected
the whole Christian world, that opinions first propagated
on the shores of the Euxine found their most vigorous

I antagonist on the coast of Africa, while a new and fervid
enthusiasm, which arose in Phrygia, captivated the
kindred spirit of Tertuilian. Montanism harmonised
with AlHean Clu'istianity in the simplicity of
1 ,. 1 MonlaniBm.

Its creed, which did not depart from the pre-
dominant form of Christianity ; and in the extreme
rigour of its fasts. While Gnosticism outbid the religion
of Jesus and his Apostles, Montanism outbid the Gnos-
tics in its austerities ; ' it admitted marriage as a neces-

• The Wnrtem Ch

udiea w«re, m mnrLyr of Lroni, in whidi I nrltow-

^ g««™lly «e.«

o the eicesidTe prisocer, Alclbladu, crhuhndlouellFcd

&.tmg rabKqusnlly ii

frwiuoed to to on braul and vraler olciie, woi ivproTi'd

Ei«t ». Ut«Dt bj the

■nomstic spirit, for ml making frw use of Gmi'B Meii-

8m the L-orioua TiiioD

of Attnlua, the tur*a, nnd thin giTinf offcmje to ih?

VOL. IL

162

MONTANISM.

sary evil, but it denounced second nuptials as an im
I'iable sin;' above all, Montauism concurred vith
ijelief of the South in resoiviug religion into invk'snl
emotion. There is a singular correspondence between
Phrygian Heathenism and the Phrygian Christianity of
Montanus and liis followers. The Urgiasm, the inward
raiJture, the working of a divine influence upon the
soul till it WHS wrought up to a state of holy frenzy, had
continually sent forth the priests of Cybele, and females
of a highly excitable temperament, into the WesteiW
provinces ; ' whom the vulgar beheld with awe, as mani-
festly possessed by the divinity ; whom the philosophid
party, eqiially mistaken, treated with contempt,
impostors. So, with the followers of Montanus (and.
women were his most ardent votaries), with Prisca and
Maximilln, the apostles of his sect, the pure, and me^
and peaceful spirit of Christianity became a wild* ■
visionary, a frantic enthusiasm : it worked paroxysms t£
iutenee devotion ; it made the soul partake of all the
fever of physical excitement. As in all ages wiiere ths
mild and rational faith of Christ has been too calm and
serene for persons brooding to madness over their own
internal emotions, it proclaimed itself a religious ad-

t}i6^

Church. The Churthe. of Ljon. cud

Phrygian national character in Socn-

Viaone, hBviiig been fouoded from

ts,H. E. iv.28:-"Tbe PhrygUn.

Phryga. were iniiaus to avoid the

lire n chaste and lempenite people j

ihej- seldom sweat : the Scythians and

HM. EcGl. r. 3.

Thisdans are choleric! Ihe hjflleni

husbands, BceordingtoApoUoaiuaapud

liuscb. T, 18.

neither: Ihey do not c»ro for the

■ The effect of ratiolal ehimcter

and lemperament nn the opinio™ uid

foiio of religion did not escape the ob-

seem lo hsre broken mrt at all periodi

servation of tlie Christinn Krilert,

in I'digioua emotiam.

■ Ch

ATOLOUT OF TERTdLLUN.

Tanoement, a more sublime and spiritual Cimetiaiiity.
Judaism was the infancy, Christianity the youth, the
revelation of the Spirit the manhood of the human soul.
It was this Spirit, this Paraclete, which resided in all
its fiilness in the bosom of Montanus ; his adversaries
asserted that he gave liimself out as the Paraclete ; bnt
it is more probable that his vague and mystic language
was misunderstood, or, possibly misrepresented by the
malice of his adversaries. In Moritanism the sectarian,
the exclusive spirit, was at its height ; and this claim to
higher perfection, this aeclusion from the vulgar race of
Christians, whose weakness had been too often shown in
the hour of trial; who had neither attained the Iieight
of his austerity, nor courted martyrdom, nor refused all
ignominious compromises with the persecuting authori-
ties with the unbending rigour which he demanded,
would still further commend the claims of Montaniem to
the homage of Tertullian.

During the persecution under Severus, Tertullian
stood forth as the apologist of Christiamty ; Apology of
and the tone of his Apology is characteristic '^""°'"™-
not only of the man, but of liis native country,
■while it is no less illustrative of the altered position of
Christianity. The address of Tertullian to Scapula, the
Prefect of Africa, is no longer in the tone of tranquil
expostulation against the barbarity of persecuting blame-
lea and unoffending men, still less that of humblf
BUpphcalion, Every sentence breathes scorn, defiance;
menace. It heaps contempt upon the gods of Paganism ;
it avows the determination of the Cliristians to expel
the dcermim from the respect and adoration of mankind.
It condescends not to exculpate the Christians from
being the cause of the calamities which had recently
t laid waste the province ; the torrent rains which liiit'

IG4 WAHNING TO THE PERSECUTORS.

swept away the harveeta; the fires whicli had het^ta^'
with ruin the streets of Carthage ; the siia which tmdH
been pretematurally eolipBed, when at its mendiaoji'
duiiDg an assembly of the province at Utica. All theat
portentous signs are unequivocally ascribed to the
geance of the Christians' God, viaiting the guilt of
obstinate idolatry. The persecutors of the Christians
aiie warned by the awful examples of Eoman dignitaries
who had been stricken blind, and eaten with worms, au
tlie ehastisement of Heaven for their injustice and
cruelty to the worsbijjpers of Christ. Scapula himself
is atemly admoniehed to talie warning by tbeir fate ;
while the orator, by no means deficient, at the same
time, in dexterous address, reminds him of the humane
[lolicy of others : — " Your cruelty will be our glory.
Thousands of both sexes, and of every rank, wiU eagerly
crowd to martyrdom, exhaust your fires, and weary your
swords. Carthage must be decimated ; the principal
I)eTaons in the city, even, perhaps, your own most inti-
mate &iends and kindred, must be sacriiiced. Yaiufy
will you war against God. Magistrates ate but mei^.
and will suffer the common lot of mortality ; but Chria*
Inanity will endure as long as the Eoman Empire, anA'
the duration of the Empire will he coeval with that of'
the world." "

History, even Christian history, is confined to moio
.[general views of public affairs, and dwells too escltisively
'in what may be called the high places of human life ;
but whenever a glimpse is aflbrded of lowlier, and of
more common life, it is, perhaps, best fulfilling its ofiBoe
of presenting a lively picture of the times, if it alloivs

MM ^

Chap. VIII.

PERPETUA AND FELICITAS.

ie5

Itself occasionally some more minute detail, and il-*
lostrates the manner in which the leading events of
particular periods affected individuals not in the highest
station.

Of all the histories of martyrdom, none is so unex-
aggerated in its tone and language, so entirely
unencumbered with miracle ; none abounds in of Perpetua

-,,-/» 1 and FeUdtas.

such exquisite touches of nature, or, on the
whole, from its minuteness and circumstantiality,
breathes such an air of truth and reality, as that of
Perpetua and Felicitas, two African females. Their
death is ascribed, in the Acts, to the year of the accession
of Geta, * the son of Severus. Though there was no
general persecution at that period, yet, as the
Faithful held their lives, at all times, liable
to the outburst of popular resentment, or the caprice of
an arbitrary proconsul, there is much probability that a
time of general rejoicing might be that in which the
Christians, who were always accused of a disloyal re-
luctance to mingle in the popular festivities, and who
kept aloof from the public sacrifices on such auniver-

AJ>. 202.

■ The external evidence to the au-
thenticity of these Acts is not quite
equal to the internal. They were first
published by Lucas Holstenius, from
a MS. in the Convent of Monte Casino ;
re-edited by Valesius at Paris, and by
Hoinart, in his Acta Siucera Mar-
tynnn, p. 90, who collated two other
MSS. There appear, however, strong
indications that the Acts of these
African Martyrs are translated from
the Greek ; at least it is difficult other-
wise to account for the frequent un-
tmaflatod Greek words and idioms
in the text. The following are ex-

amples : c iii., turbarnm beneBcio,
X<H^v' c. iv., bene venisti, tegnon,
reKvhv c. viii., in oramate, a vision,
opafKxri' diadema, or diastema, an
interval, Huurrrjfia' c z., afe, &^*
xii., agios, agios, agios.

There are indeed some suspicious
marks of Montanism which perhaps
prevented these Acts from being more
generally known.

It is not quite clear where these
martyrs suffered. Valesius supposed
Carthage; others^ in one of the two
towns called Tuburbium which wev*
situated in Proconsular Africa.

IMPRISONMENT OF PERPETUA. BookB.,

saries, would be most exposed to pei-secution. The
youtliful catechumens, Revocatus and Felicitas, Sattir^
ninua and Secundulus, were apprehended, and with them
Vivia Perpetua, a woman of good family, liberal edae&-
tioi), and honourably married. Perpetua was about
twenty-two years old ; her father and mother were living:
she bad two brothers, — one of them, like herself, t
catechumen, — and an tnfiaiit at her breast. The history
of the persecution is related by Perpetua herself, and is
said to have been written by her own hand: — "When
we were in the bands of the persecutorfl, my father, in
his tender affection, persevered in his endeavoura to
pervert me from the faith.'' ' My father, this vessel, ba
it a pitcher, or any tiling else, can we call it by any
other name?' 'Certainly not,' he replied. 'Nor caul
call myself by any other name but that of Chriatian,'
My father looked as if he could bare plucked my eyes
out ; but ho only harassed mo, and departed, persuaded
by the arguments of the devil. Then, after being a
few days without seeing my father, I was enabled to
give thanks to God, and his absence was tempered to
my spirit. After a few days we were baptized, and the
waters of baptism seemed to give power of endurance to
my body. Again a few days, and we were cast into
prison, I was terrified ; for I had never before seen
such total darkness. O miserable day ! — from the
dreadful heat of the prisoners crowded together, and the
insults of the soldiers. But I was wrung with solicitude
for my infant. Two of our deacons, however, by the
payment of money, obtained our removal for some hours
in the day to a more open part of the prison. Each ot

I
I

the captives then pursued his usual occupation ; bnt I
«at and suckled my infant, who was wasting away with
hunger. In my anxiety, I addressed and consoled my
mother, and commended my child to my brother ; and
I began to pine away at seeing them pining away on
my account And for many days I suffered this anxiety,
and accustomed my child to remain in the prison with
me ; and I immediately recovered my strength, and was
relieved from my toil and trouble for my infant, and
the prison became to me like a palace ; and I was
happier there than I should have been anywhere else.

"My brother then said to me, ' Perpetua, you are ex-
alted to such dignity, that you may pray for a vision, and
it shall be shown you whether our doom is martyrdom
or release.' " This is the language of Montanism ; but
the vision is exactly that which might haunt the slumbers
of the Christian in a high state of religious enthusiasm ;
it showed merely the familiar images of the faith,
arrangiog themselves into form. She saw a lofty ladder
of gold, ascending to heaven ; around it were swords,
lances, hooks; and a great dragon lay at its foot, to
seize those who would ascend. Saturus, a distinguished
Christian, went up first ; beckoned her to follow ; and
controlled the dragon by the name of Jesus Christ.
She ascended, and found herself in a spacious garden,
in which sat a man with white hair, in the garb of a
shepherd, milking his sheep,^ with many myriads around
him. He welcomed her, and gave her a morsel of
cheese; and "I received it with folded hands, and ate
it; and all the sainte around exclaimed, 'Amen.' I
awoke at the sound, with the sweet taste in my mouth.

16B TRIAL AND CONSTANCY OF PERPETUA. B«

and I related it to my brother ; and we knew that
martyrdom was at baud, and we began to have no hop9 >
in this world."

" After a few days, there was a rumour that we were
to be heard. And my father came Irom the city, wasted
away with anxiety, to pervert me ; and he said, ' Hi
wmpaasion, my daugliter ! od my grey hairs ; hav«
eompassion on thy'father, if he is worthy of the name
of father. If I have thus brought thee up to the flow^
of thine age ; if I have preferred thee to all thy bro-
thers, do not expose me to tliis disgrace. Look on thy
brother; look on thy mother, and thy aunt; look on
thy child, who cannot live without thee. Do not destroy
us all.' Thus spake my father, kissing my hands in his
fondness, and throwing himself at my feet; and in
his tears he called me not his daughter, but his miatrees
(domiua). And I was grieved for the grey hairs of my
father, because he aJone, of all our family, did not
rejoice in my martyrdom ; and I consoled hiin, saying,
' In this trial, what God wills, will take place. Know
that we are not in our own power, but in that of God.'
And he went away sorrowing.

" Another day, while we were at dinner, we were
suddenly seized and carried off to trial ; and we came
to the town- The report spread rapidly, and an im-
mense multitude was assembled. We were placed at
the bar; the rest were interrogated, and made their
confession. And it came to my turn ; and my father
instantly appeared with ray child, and he drew me down
the step, and said in a beseeching tone, 'Have com-
passion on your infant ; ' and Hilarianus the procuratoi,
who exercised the power of life and death for the Pro-
cimsul Timinianus, who had died, said, ' Spare the grey
Imirs of your parent ; spare your iuiknt j offer sacrifice

CHAP.VllI. SHE, AND OTHEES, CONDEMNED TO DIE.

^H (for the welfare of the Emperor,' And I answered, 'I
^m will not sacrifice.' 'Art thou a Cliristian?' said Hila-
H riamia. I answered, ' I am a Christian.' And while
B my father stood thereto persuade me, Hilarianus ordered
f iim to be thrust down, and beaten with rods. And tlie
misfortune of my father grieved me ; and I was as
much grieved for his old age as if I had been scourged
myseli He then passed sentence on us all, and con-
demned us to the wild beasts ; and we went back in
cheerfulness to the prison. And because I was accus-
tomed to suckle my infant, and to keep it with me in
the prison, I sent Pomponius the deacon to seek it from
my father. But my father would not send it ; but, by
the will of God, the child no longer desired the breast,
and I suffered no uneasiness lest at such a time I
should be afflicted by the sufferings of my child, or by
pains in my breaste."

Her visions now grow more frequent and vivid. The
name of her brother Dinocrates suddenly occurred to
' her in her prayers. He had died at seven years old, of
a loathsome disease, no doubt without Christian baptism.
She had a vision in which Dinocrates appeared in a
place of profound darkness, where there was a pool of
water, which be could not reach on accoimt of his small
etatore. In a second vision, Dinocrates appeared again ;
the pool rose up and touched him, and he drank a full
goblet of the water. "And when he was Batisfied, he
went away to play, as infants are wont, and I awoke ;
and I knew that he was translated from the place of
punishment," '

Again a few days, and the keeper of the prison, pro-
foundly impressed by their conduct, and beginaing to

i^mly n kinJ ol

FELICITAS — MATERNAL hOVH.

diBcem "the power of Grod within them," admittfl4<'
many of the brethren to visit them, for mutual codboIa-
tion. " And as the day of the games approached, my
father entered, worn out with affliction, and began to
pinck liis beard, and to throw himself down with his
face npon the groand, and to wish that he could hasten
his death, and to speak words which might have moved,
any living creature. And I was grieved for the sorrows
of his old age." The night before they were to be
exposed in the arena, she dreamed that she was changed
to a man ; fought and triumphed over a huge and ter-
rible Egyptian gladiator ; and she put her foot npon his
head, and she received the crown, and passed out of the
Vivarian Gate, and knew that she had triumphed not
over man but over the devil, 'fhe vision of Satunis,
which he related for their consolation, was more splendid.
He ascended iuto the realms of light, into a beautiful
garden, and to a palace, the walls of which were light ;
and there he was welcomed, not only by the emgels,
but by all the friends who had preceded him in the
glorious career. It is singular that, among the rest,
he saw a bishop and a priest, between whom there
had been some dissensions ; and while Peqjetua was
conversing with them, tlie angels interfered and
insisted on their perfect reconciliation. Some kind of
blame seems to be attached to the Bishop Optatua,
because some of his flock appeared as if they came from
the factions of the circus, with the spirit of mortal
strife not yet allayed.

The narrative then proceeds to another instance of
the triumph of faith over the strongest of human
feelings, the love of a young motiier for her offspring.
Felicitaa was in the eighth month of her pregnancy.
She feared, and her friends shared in her apprehensJon,

]

u. ^

THE MAKTYRS IN THE ARENA.

tliat, on tliat account, her martyrdom might be delayed.
They prayed together, and her travail came on. In her
agony at that most painful period of delivery, she gave
way to her sufferings. "How then," said one of the
servants of the prison, "if you cannot endure these
pains, will you endure exposure to the wild beasts?"
She replied, " I bear now ray own sufferings ; then,
there will be One within me who will hear my sufferings
for me, because I shall suffer for his sake." She
brought forth a girl, of whom a Christian sister took
the charge.

Perpetua maintained her calmness to the end. While
they were treated with severity by a tribune, who feared
lest they should be delivered from tho prison by
enchantment, Perpetua remonstrated with a kind of
roournfiil pleasantry, and said that, if iU-used, they
would do no credit to the birthday of C^sar: the
victims ought to be fattened for the sacrifice. But their
language and demeanour were not always so calm and
gentle ; the words of some became those of defiance —
almost of insult ; and this is related with as much admi-
ration as the more tranquil sublimity of the former
incidents. To the people who gazed on them, in their
importunate curiosity, at their agape, they said, " Is not
to-morrow's spectacle enough to satiate your hate? To-
day you look on us vrith friendly faces ; to-morrow you
will be our deadly enemies. Mark well our coun-
tenances, that you may know them again on the day of
judgement" And to Hilarianus, on bis tribunal, they
said, " Thou judgest us, but God will judge thee," At
this language, the exasperated people demanded that
they should be acoui^ed. When taken out to the exe-
cution, they declined, and were permitted to decline,
[' the proiane dress in which they were to be clad ; tho

172 T1«K MARTraDOM.

men, that of the priests of Satnrn ; the women, that
tlie priestesses of Ceres. '' They oame forward in thi
simple attire, Perpetua singing psalms. The men were
exposed to leopards and bears ; and the women were
hnng lip naked in nets, to be gored by a furious cow.
But even the excited populace shrunk with horros
at the spectacle of two young and delicate womi
one recently recovered from eliildbirth, in this
They were recalled by acclamation, and in mi
brongfat forward again, clad in loose robes.' Perpel
was tossed, her garment was rent ; but, more conscii
of her wounded modesty than of jiain, she drew the robe
over the part of her person which was exposed. She
then calmly clasped up her hair, because it did not
become a martyr to suffer with diaheTelled locks, the
sign of sorrow. She then raised up the fainting and
mortally wounded Felicitas, and, the cruelty of the
populace being for a time appeased, they were permitted
to retire. Perpetua seemed rapt in ecstasy, and, as if
awaking from sleep, inquired when she was to be ex-
posed to tlie beast. She could scarcely be made to
beHeve what had taken place ; her last words tenderly
admonished her brother to be steadfast in the faith.
I may close the scene by intimating that all were
speedily released from their sufferings, and entered iiita
their glory. Perpetua guided with her own hand the
merciful sword of the gladiator which relieved her from
her agony.

This African persecution, which laid the seeds of
Aiture schisms and fatal feuds, la^ed till, at least, the

^ Thia was an Hnuaunl cireum-
atiuin ; and SMribod to the devil.

1^^

ChAP, VIIL CAflACAl J.A — ELAGABAI.OS. 173

aecond year of Caracalla. From its close, except
daring the ehort reign of Maximiu, Clirietianity
enjoyed uninterrupted peace till tlie reign Geu.
of Deciua." But during tiiia period occuired
a remarkable event in tbe religious history of Rome.
The pontiff of one of the wild forms of the Nature-
worship of the East appeared in the city of Eome aa Em-
peror. The ancient ritca of Baalpear, but little changed
in the course of ages, intruded themselves into the
SBnctuary of the Capitoline Jove, and offended at once
the religious majesty aud the graver decency of Roman
manners.^ Elagabalus derived his name from Bisgjitaia.
the Syrian appellative of the 8uu; the had i.ii. aia.'
been educated in the precincts of the temple ; and the
Emperor of Rome was lost and absorbed in the priest of
on effeminate superstition. The new rehgion did not
Bteal in under the modest demeanour of a stranger,
claiming the common rights of hospitality as the national
faith of a subject people ; it entered with a public pomp,
as though to supersede and eclipse the ancestral deities
of Rome. The god Elagabalus was conveyed in solemn
procession through the wondering provinces ; his sym-
bols were received with all tbe honour of the Supreme
Deity. The conical black stone, which was adored at
Emesa, was, no doubt, in its origin, one of those obscene
EQrmbols wliich appear in almost every form of the
Oriental Nature- worship. The rudeness of ancient art
had allowed it to remaiu in less offensive shapelessness ;
and, not improbably, the original symbolic meaning had
become obsolete. The Sun had become the visible type

U 249 :— CaivcallB, |244; Doclufi, 249.
|'311 ; Mncriuiu, 317 ; Elngibiiltui, • l-smpridii HdiDe:iibnlus.
I ■;i8j Alemnder SaTermi, 2:^3 : Mali- Cnsaius, lib. Uiii. ; HowdiMi, T
lttin»DdlheGaiiliw»,235-244;Phmp. \

174 REVEEKNCE FOR THE rALLADIOSt. Booa II.

of Deity, and the object of adoration. The mysterious
priueiple of generation, of which, in the primitive re-
ligion of nature, he was the type and im^;e, gave place
to the noblest object of homan idolatry — ^the least de-
basing representative of the Great Supreme. The idol
of Emesa entered Rome in solemn procession ; a mag-
nificent temple was built upon the Palatine Hill ; a
number of altars stood round, on which every day
the moflt sumptuous offerings — hecatombs of oxen,
countless sheep, the moat costly aromatics, the choicest
wines — were offered. Streams of blood and wine were
constantly 0owing down ; flhile the highest dignitaries
of the Empire— commanders of legions, rulers of pro-
vinces, the gravest senators, appeared as humble miniB-
tera, clad in the loose and flowing robes and linen
sandals of the East, among the lascivious dances and
the wanton music of Oi'ieutal drums and cymbals.
These degrading practices were the only way to civil'
and mihtary preferment. The whole senato and eqai
trian order stood around; and those who played ill
part of adoration, or whose secret murmurs incautiously
betrayed their devout indignation (for this insult to
ancient religion of Kome awakened some sense ol' shai
in the degenerate and servile aristocracy), were pot
to death. The most sacred and patriotic sentiments
cherished, above all the hallowed treasures of the city,
the Palladium, the image of Minerva. Popular venera-
tion worshipped, in distant awe, the unseen deity ; for
profane eye might never behold the virgin image. The
inviolability of the Koman dominion was inseparably
connected with the uncontaminated sanctity of the PaJIa-
dium. The Syrian declared his intention of wedding
the ancient tutelary goddess to his foreign deity. The
image was publicly brought forth ; exjwsed to the sully-

lals,
ivil^^H

Chap. Vlll. WOaBHIP iH^ THE SUN IN HOME. 175

ing gaze of the multitTide; solemnly wedded, and in-
Bolently repudiated by tlie anworthy Btranger. A more
appropriate bride was found in the kindied worship or
Syrian deity, worshipped under the name of Kumi.
Astarte in the Eaat, ia Carthage aa the Queen of
Heaven — Venus Urania, aa translated into the mytho-
logical language of the West. She was brought from
Carthage. The whole city— the whole of Italy — was
commanded to celebrate tlie bridal festival ; and the
nuptials of the two foreign deities might appear to com-
plete the triumph over the insulted divinities of Rome.
Nothing was sacred to the voluptuous Syrian, He
introduced the manners as well as the religion of the
"East ; his rapid succession of wives imitated the poly-
gamy of an Oriental despot ; and his vices not merely
corrupted the morals, but insulted the most sacred
feelings, of the people. He tore a vestal virgin from
her sanctuary, to suffer his polluting embraces; he
violated the sanctuary itself; attempted to make him-
self master of the mystic coffer in which the socrred
deposit was enshrined : it was said that the pious fraud
of the priesthood deceived him with a counterfeit,
which he dashed to pieces in his anger. It was openly
asBerted that the worship of the Sun, under his name of
El^abalua, was to supei-aede all other worship. If we
may believe the biographies in the Augustan history, a
more ambitiohs scheme of a imiversal religion
had dawned upon the mind of the Emperor, umoi ■
The Jewish, the Samaritan, even the Chris- i
tian, were to be fused and recast into one
great system, of which tlie Snn was to be the central
object of adoration,' At all events, the deities of Eome

176 HUMAN SACRIFICES.

were actually degiaded before the pnblic gaae
humble ministers of Elagabalus. Every year of

Emperor's brief reign, the god was conveyed from bia
Palatine temple to a suburban edifice of still more
sumptuous maguificence. The statue passed in a car
drawn by six horses. The Emperor of the world, his
eyes stained with paint, ran and danced before it with
antic gestures of adoration. The earth was strewn with
gold dust ; flowers and chaplets were sciittored by the
people, while tlie images of all the other gods, the
splendid ornaments and vessels of all their temples,
(vere carried, like the spoils of subject nations, in the
annual ovation of the Phtenician deity. Even human
sacrifices, and, if we may credit the monstrous fact,
the most beautiful sons of the noblest families, werai
offered on the altar of this Moloch of the East,'

II impossible to suppose that the weak and crumbli
edifice of Paganism was not shaken to its base by
estraordinary revolution. An ancient religion eai
tbos be inanlted without losing much of its majesty,
hold upon the popular veueratiou is violently '
asunder. With ita more sincere votaries, the gen
animosity to foreign, particularly to Eastern, rebgioi
might be inflamed or deepened ; and Christianity mi^
share in some part of the detestation excited by the es?'
cesses of a superstition eo opposite in its nature. Rub
others whose I'liith had been shaken, and whose morab
feelings revolted, by a religion whose essential eharacteit'
was sensuality, and whose licentious tendency had been.'-
so disgustingly illustrated by the unspeakable poUntioiUi;

illug tranafei-endiun. ut omtuum cultu- I ad hoc puerii uobilibiiB tt deoorie ptTfl
mrDm secrrtiim RelLi^ball Bucerdo- aniiivin llaliam pstri'

I Csdit ft honuuiai hoetui, l«ti> ! dolor. Uioipnd. iJel

■ ©Lil'. Vlll. AlEXANDEK SEVEEBS — MAMM^A.

^■j.of its imperial patron, would hasten to embrace that
^K purer faith which was most remote &om the religion of
^1 .Elagabalus,

^B From the policy of the Court, as well as the pure and
^ amiable character of the successor of Elaga- iinana«t
balua, the more offensive parts of this foreign E^^r.
fluperstition disappeared with their imperial *-^'^
patron. But the old Eoman religion was not reinstated
in its jealous and unmingled dignity. Alexander Se-
verus had been bred in another school ; and the in-
fluence which swayed him, during the earlier part at
least of hia reign, was of a differeut character from that
which had formed the mind of Elagabalns. It was the
mother of Elagabalus who, however she might blush
with shame at the impurities of her effeminate son, had
consecrated him to the service of the deity in Emesa,
The mother of Alexander Severus, the able, perhaps
crafty and rapacious, Mammsea, had at least
held intercourse with the Christiana of Syria.
She had conversed with the celebrated Origen, and
listened to hia exhortations, if without conversion, still not
without respect. Alexander, though he had neither the
religious education, the pontifical character, nor the
dissolute manners of his predecessor, was a Syrian,
wth no hereditary attacnment to the Homan foi-m of
Paganism. He seems to have afi'ected a kiud of univer-
Balism: he paid decent respect to the gods of the
Capitol ; he held in honour the Egyptian worship, and
enlarged the t«mples of Isis and Serapis. In his own
palace, with respectful indifference, he enshrined, as it
were, as hia household deities, the representatives of
the different religious or theophilosophic systems whicli
prevalent in the Koman Empire, — Orpheus, Abra-
ham, Christ, and Apollonius of Tyana. The first of
VOL. n. N

178

THE ABKAHAMIC RELIGION.

these represented the wisdom of the Mysteries, tl
purified Nature- worship, which had laboured to elevati
the popular mythology into a nohle and coherent allfl-
gorism. It ia singular that Abraham, rattier than
Moses, was placed at the head of Jndaisni : it is possible
that the traditionary sanctity which attached to the first
parent of the Jewish people, and of many of the Arab
tribes, and which was afterwards emljodied in the Mo-
hammedan Koran, was floating in the East, and would
comprehend, as it were, the opinions not only of th^M^f
Jews, hut of a much wider circle of the Syrian natireB.* ^B
In Apollonius was centred the more modem Theurgy,
the magic which commanded the intermediate spirits
between the higher world and the world of man ; thq
more spiritual polytheism which had released the subor-
dinate deities irom their human form, and maintained
them in constant intercourse with the sou! of man,
Christianity, in the person of its founder, eveu where
it did not command authority as a rehgion, had never-
theless lost the character under which it had ao long
and so unjustly laboured, of animosity to mankind.
Though He was considered but as one of the sages who
shared in the homage paid to their beneficent wisdom,
the followers of Jesus had now lived down all the bitter
hostility which liad so generally prevailed against them.
The homage of Alexander Severus may he a fair test of
the general sentiment of the more intelhgent Heathen h
of his time.' It is clear that the exclnaive spirit of'.i^H

k This might seem la cOD<inn tho
theory of Sprenger as to the wideipre»d
Abrahamic religioD, UoaoOioMD, allied
KaDjIvre;, pnislent in AnbiK at the
time of the coming of MohamiDed,
Ldieii d«9 Hohiamwd, B. i, c, i.

JaUoDiki wrote > veij ingcmom
J to show that Aksnnder Strenis
oonrerted to OiMMfiC Chriitlanily.
IT. Compara H>70^

I
I

Cbap, VIII. FJEST i;HRISHAN CHURCHES, 179

Greek and Koman civilisation is broken dowo : it is
not now Socratea or Plato, Epicurus or Zeuo, who are
ooQsidered the sole guiding intellecta of human wie-
dom. These Eastern barbarians are considered rivals,
if not superior, to the philosophers of Greece. The
world is betraying ita irresistible yearning towards a
reliffim; and these are the first oyertures, aa it were.
to more general submission.

In the reign of Alexander Severus, at least, com-
menced the great change in the outward ap-
pearance of ChriBtiaaity. Christian bishops uioreiai'iun

, , , , . ^ ofCbrlstl-

were admitted, even at the court, in a recog- w^^ »<
nised official character ; and Christian churches'
began to rise in different parts of the empire, and to
possess endowments in land." To the astonishment nl
the Heathen, the religion of Christ had as yet appeared
without temple or altar ; the religious assemblies had been
held in privacy ; it was yet a domestic worship. Even
the Jew had his public synagogue or his more secludwl
proseucha ; but where the Christians met was indiciited
by no separate and distinguished dwelling ; the cemetery
of their dead, the sequestered grove, tho private cham-
ber, contained their peaceful assemblies. Their privacy
was as once their security and their danger. On the
one hand, there was no well-known edifice in which the
furiooB and excited rabble coald surprise the "rei
general body of the Christians, and wreak its cunrehes.
Vengeance by indiscriminate massacre ; on the other, the

* Til1aaoDt,nsGibbo

tigm Ihs dots of the eai

dianbes to the reign of Aleinoder

Sncnu ; Mr. Mojie to tliat of Gallic-

Ivti*. Tbe ditTerEdce is ier7sL'ght,ui(i,

T kU, the ciiBDge fkim a prirals

building, set npart far a pAriiculiir
nw, and a public one of no architto
toral pnlenBions, miij hire bun alnwtt
imperceptible, The pnsnge of Lain~
pridias appoirs coofJusive in favour «f
Tillemont.

H 1

SILENT PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.

lertpa

jealousy of the Grovernment against all private i
socifttioDs would be constaatly kept on the alert^i
and a religioa without a temple was so inexplicable a
problem to Pagan feeling, that it would strengthen and
confirm all the vague imputations of Atheism, or of cri-
minal licence in these mysterions meetings which seemed
to shun the light of day. Their religious usages must
now have become much better known, as Alexander
borrowed their mode of publishing the names of those
who were proposed for ordination, and established a
similar proceeding with regard to all candidates for
civil office ; and a piece of gronnd, in Eome, which was
litigated by a company of victuallers, was awarded by
the Emperor himself to the Christians, upon the prin-
ciple that it was better that it should be devoted to th e
ivorship of God in any form, than applied to a profaoo^l
and unwortliy use.'" ^

These buildings were no doubt, as yet, of modest
height and unpretending form ; but the religion was
thus publicly recognised as one of the various forms of
worship which the Government did not prohibit from ^
opening the gates of its temples to mankind. J^M

The progress of Christianity during all this periodj -^B
though silent, was uninterrupted. The miseries which
wei-e gradually involving the whole Eoman Empire,
from the conflicts and the tyranny of a rapid succession
of masters — from taxation becoming more grinding and
burdensome — and from the still multiplying inroads and
expanding devastations of the barbarians, assisted its
progress. Many took refuge in a religion which pro-
mised beatitude in a future state of being, from the
inevitable evils of this life.

CBap. VIII. ITS INFLUENCE UN HEATHEKISM.

■ - But in no respect is the progress of Christianity
W more evident and remarkable than in its influence on
neatbenism itself. Though philosophy, which had long
been the anttigoniat and most dangerous enemy inBoen™ ot
of the popular religion, now made apparently ^^^^
common cause with it against the common '*°^
enemy, Christianity, yet there had been an unpereeived
and amicable approximation between the two religions.
Heathenism, as interpreted by philosophy, almost found
fevour vrith some of the more moderate Christian apolo-
gists; while, as we have seen, in the altered tone of
»the controversy, the Christiana have rarely occasion to
defend themselves against those horrible charges of
licentiousness, incest, and cannibalism, which, till re-
cently, their advocates had been constrained to notice.
The -ChriatianB endeavoured to enlist the earlier philo-
sophers in their cause ; they were scarcely content with
BBserting that the nobler Grecian philosophy might be
designed to prepare the human mind for the reception
of Christianity; they were almost inclined to endow

^ these sages with a kind of prophetic foreknowledge of
tts more mysterious doctrines, " I have explained," says
the Christian in Minuci us Felix, "the opinions of almost
all the philosophers, whose most illuetrious glory it is
that they have worshipped one God, though under
various names ; so that one might suppose, cither that
[.the Christians of the present day are philosophers, or
t the philosophers of old were already Christians.""
But these advances on the part of Christianity were

CHAKGE IN HEATHENISM.

more than met by Pagauism. The Heathen leligii
whitfh prevailed at least among the more enlighteni
Pagaus duriog thia period, and which, differently modi<
tied, more fully developed, and, as we shall hereafter
find, exalted still more from a philosophy into a religion,
ctmnrain Julian endeavoured to reinstate as the esta-
HMiEcnuio. blished faith, was almost as different from that
of the older Greeka and Komana, or even that which
prevailed at the pommencement of the Empire, as it
was from Christianity. It worshipped in the same tem>
pies ; it performed, to a certain extent, the same rites ;.
it actually abrogated the local worship of no one of the
multitudinous deitiee of Paganism, But over all this,
which was the real religion, both in theory and practice,
in the older times, had risen a kind of epeculatiTe
Theism, to which the popular worship acknowledged ite
liumble Bubordination. On the great elementary prin-
ciple of Christianity, the Unity of the Supreme God, this
approximation had long been sOently made. Celsua, in
his celebrated controversy with Origen, asserts that this
philosophical notion of tlie Deity is perfectly reconeileable
with Paganism. " We also can place a Supreme Being
above the world and above all human things, and approve
and sympathise in whatever may be taught of a spiritnal
rather than material adoration of the gods ; for, with
the belief in the gods worsliipped in every land and by
every people, harmonises the belief in a Primal Being, a
Supreme God, who has given to every land its guardiany
to every people its presiding deity. The unity of the
Supreme Being, and the consequent unity of the design
of the universe, remains, even if it be admitted that
each people has its gods, whom it must worship in a
peculiar manner, according to their peculiar character ;
and the worship of all tliese different deities is reflected

i
I

%*p.vni, PAGANISM BECIIMES SERIOUS, 183

back to the Supreme God, who has appointed tbem, as
it were. Jus delegates and representativeB. Those who
iirgue that men ought not to serve many masters impute
human weakness to God. God is not jealous of the
adoration paid to subordinate deities ; He is superior in
his natiu'e to degradation and insult. Beason iteelf might
justify the belief in the inferior deities, which are the ob-
jects of the established worship. For, since the Supreme
God can only produce that which is immortal and im-
perishable, the existence of mortal beiugs cannot be
explained, unless we distinguish from him those iuferior
deities, and assert them to be the creatures of mortal
beings and of perishable things." "

From this time, Paganism has changed not merely
some of its fundamental teueta, but its general Pspmi™
character ; it has become serious, solemn, de- eerious.
Tout In Luciaa, unbelief seemed to have readied its
height, and as rapidly declined. Tlie witty satirist of
Polytheism had, no doubt, many admirers ; he had no
imitators. A reaction has takeu place; none of the
distinguished statesmen of the third century boldly
and ostentatiously, as in the times of the later Kepublic,
display their contempt for religion. Epicureanism has
lost, if not its partisans, its open advocate. The most
eminent writers treat religion with decency if not with
devout respect; no one is ambitious of passing for a
deepiser of the gods. And with faith and piety broke
forth all the aberrations of religious belief and devout
feeling, wonder-working mysticism, and dreamy enthu-
Biasm, in their various forms,"

This was the commencement of that new Platoniem
which, from tliia time, exercised a supreme authority, to

184

APOLLOSICS OF TTASA — PORPHTRICS.

the estinction of the older forms of Grecian philowj
and grew up into a dangerous antagonist of ChrietianiQr.
It aspired to be a religion as well ae a philosophy, and
gradually incorporated more and more of snch religiotu
L-lemcntfl from the creeds of the Oriental phUoeopheis aa
would harmonise nith its system. It was estravagan^
bat it was earnest ; wild, but serious. It created a kind
AroninLiii of "f literature of its own. The Life of ApoUonios
'^'" of Tyana was a grave romance, in which it
embodied much of its Theurgy, its power of connecting
the invisible with the visible world ; its wonder-working,
throagh the intermediate daemons at its command, whi<^.
bears possibly, but not clearly, an intentional, certainf
a close, resemblance to the Gospels, It seized
moulded to its purpose the poetry and philosophy
older Greece. Such of the mythic legends as it eoi
allegorise, it retained with every demonstration of
verence ; the rest it either allowed quietly to fall into
oblivion, or repudiated as lawless fictions of the poets.
The manner in which poetrj' was transmuted into moral
and religious allegory is shown in the treatise
of Porphyrius on the Cave of the Kj-mpha ia<
the Odyssey, The skill, as well as the dreamy mysticisno,
with which this school of writers combined the dim tr*»,
ditions of the older philosophy and the esoteric doctrinal .
of the Mysteries, to give the sanction of antiquity to their>
own vague but attractive and fancifiil theories, api
ufcofPriht '"^ ^^^ Life of Pythagoras, and in the work on,!
""^ the Mysteries, by a somewhat later writar,.

lamblichus.
After all, however, this philosophic Paganism could
Its TO*
inferior in numbei
to those of any one of the foreign religious introduced into

™g,
hiehi^H

phiimnpbio exercise uo verv extensive influeni

ropuur, taiies were probably fa

MAXIMIN IRE TDIUCIAN.

^M Cbip. V

H the Greek and Eoman part of the empire; and its

H^ Htrength perhaps consisted in the facility with which it

coalesced with any one of those religions, or blended them

up together in one somewhat discordant syncretism. The

same man was philosopher, Hierophant at Samothrace or

IEIeusis, and initiate in the rites of Cybele, of Serapis,
or of Mithta. Of itself this scheme was far too abstract
and metaphysical to extend beyond the schools of Alex-
andria or of Athena. Though it prevailed afterwards
in influencing the Heathen fanaticism of Jidian, it even-
tually retarded but little the extinction of Heathenism.
IB was merely a sort of refuge for the intellectual few —
a self-complacent excuse, which enabled them to assert,
as they supposed, their own mental superiority, while
they were endeavouring to maintain or to revive the vul-
gar superstition, which they themselves could not but in
Beeret contemn. The moro refined it became, the less
was it suited for common use, and the less it harmonised
with the ordinary Paganism. Thus that which, in one
respect, elevated it into a dangerous rival of Christi-
anity, at the same time deprived it of its power. It
had borrowed much from Christianity, or, at least, had
been tacitly modified by its influence ; but it was the
speculative rather than the practical part, that which
constituted its sublimity rather than its popularity, in
which it approximated to the Gospel. We shall encounter
this newP^anism again before long, in its more perfect
[ and developed form.

The peace which Christianity enjoyed under the
[ virtuous Severua was disturbed by the violent ,j„|,„i„_
Bccessiou of a Thraciao savage.' It was enough "■'^'
[ to have shared in the favour of Alexander to incur the

* Etiwb. Hi«. Em. tI. 3S,

186 GORDIAJf — PHILIP— SECULAE GAMES. Book II. J

brutal resentmeDt of M-Eisimm. The ChriBtian bishops ■
like all the other polite and Tirtuons courtiers of ia/im
peaceful predecessor, were exposed to the suspicions find J
the hatred of the rude aad warlike Maximin. Cbri» |
tianity, however, suffered, though in a severer degree^ I
the common lot of maukiiid.

The eliort reign of Gordian was vmeTentfnl in ChristiaB I
oordim, history. The Emperora, it has been jnstdy
..D. aw-iM. ojjgeryeij^ ^ho were born in the Asiatic pro-
vinces were, in g;eu6ral, the least unfriendly to Cbriati-
anity. Their religion, whatever it might be, was less
uncongenial to some of the forms of the new faith; it
was a kind of Eclecticism of different Eastern reb'gionB,
which, in general, was least inclined to intolerance : at
any rate, it was uninfluenced by national pride, which
was now become the main support of Roman Paganism.
Pdiup. I'hilip, the Arabian,' is claimed by some ol
tj). 114. jjjg earliest Christian writers as a convert to
the Gospel. But the extraordinary splendour with which
he celebrated the great religious rites of Home refutes
at once this statement. Yet it might be fortunate
that a sovereign of his miid sentiments towards the
swuiM new faith filled the throne at a period when
A.D.wi. the sectilar games, which commemorated the
thousandth year of Rome, were celebrated with unex-
ampled magnificence. The majesty, the eternity, of
the empire were intimately connected with the dua
performance of these solemnities. To their intermissicaii j
after the reign of Diocletian, the Pagan historian T
ascribes the decline of Boman greatness." The second I
millennium of Rome commenced with no flattering, T
signs ; the times were gloomy and menacing ; and thq I

Chap. VIII. DECIDS. J87

general and rigid absence of the Christians from theae
sacred national creremonies, under a sterner or more
bigoted Emperor, would scarcely have escaped the
Beverest auimaiivei-sions of the Government, Even
ander the present circumstances, the danger of popular
tumult would be with difficulty avoided or restrained.
Uid patriotiam and national pride incline the Homaa
Christiana to make some sacrifice of their severer prin-
ciples; to compromise for a time their rigid aversion to
idolatry, which was thus connected with the peace and
prosperity of the state?

The persecution under Decioa, both in extent and
violence, is the most nncontestad of those j,^^
which the ecclesiastical historians took pains '-»=**-*°'-
to raise to the mystic number of the ten plagues of
Egypt. It was almost the first measure of a reign
which commenced in successful rebellion, and ended,
after two years, in fatal defeat. The Gotha delivered
the Christians from their most formidable oppressor;
yet the Goths may have been the innocent authors of
their calamities. The passions and the policy of the
Emperor were concurrent motives for his hostility. The
Christians were now a recognised body in the state ;
however carefully they might avoid mingling in the
political factions of the empire, they were necessarily of
the party of the Emperor whose favour they had enjoyed.
His enemies became their enemies, Masimin perse-
cuted those who had appeared at the court of Alexander
Severua; Decius hated the adherents, as he supposed
the partisans, of tlie mui-dered Philip.' The Gothic war
shook to the centre tlie etiifice of Roman greatness.
Koman Paganism discovered in the relaxed morals of

138 FABIAMDS SISHOP OF ROME.

the people one of the causes of the decline of
empire ; it demanded the revival of the cei
CiaMoTifae This in discriminating feeling would mistal
coiiDo!'™^ in the blindness of aversion and jealousy,
great silent corrective of the popular morahty for one
of the principal eauaea of depravation. The partial
protection of a foreign religion by a foreign Emperor
(now that Christianity had begun to erect temple against
temple, altar against altar, and the Christian bishop met
the pontiff on equal terms around the imperial throne)
would be considered among the moat flagrant depar-
tures from the sound wisdom of ancient Rome. The
deseendant of the Decii, however his obscure FaononiaK:
birth might cast a doubt on his hereditary dignity,
called upon to restore the religion as well as the mai^
ners of Eome to their ancient austere purity ; to vindi-
cate their iDsulted supremacy from the rivalship of aa
Asiatic and modem superstition. The peraecution of
IJecius endeavoured to purily Eome itself from tlid'
presence of these degenerate enemies to her prosperity,
FaMsnni K- ^^^ bishop Fabiauus was one of the first vic-
ii»po(Kon,6 ijjjjg qJ- ijjg resentment ; " and the Christians
did not venture to raise a successor to the obnoxious
office during the brief reign of Decius.

The example of the capital was followed in many d
the great cities of the empire. In the turbulent anS
sanguinary Alexandria, the zeal of the populace outran
that of the Emperor, and had already commenced a.
violent local persecution.* Antioch lamented the loSB
of her bishop, Babylas, whose relics were afterwards

■ The Cbv. lie BobA bis round the I bis aog^dt; ditc
nnme of Fobianus (I have read it my- bonis have eiplon
lelf), the fiirt authentic martjT Pope Culiicc

in the real cemetery of CaJlistas, whlcta I ' Eussb. vl 40, 41.

>
i-

»dCa*p. Vlil, CnRISTIAK EHTHDSIASH LESS STBOKO.

H 'Worshipped in what was still the voluptuous grove of
■ Daphne.'' Origen was exposed to cruel torments, but
escaped with his life. But Christian enthusiasm, by
being disseminated over a wider sphere, had
naturally lost some of its first vigour. With Bsmof

tnaany, it was now a hereditary faith, not em- mitjiia
braced by the ardent conviction of the indivi- """^
dual, but instilled into the mind, with more or less
depth, by Christian education. The Christian writers
now begin to deplore the failure of genuine Christian
principles, and to trace the Divine wrath in the afBiction

tof the Charches. Instead of presenting, as it were, a
narrow, but firm and unbroken, front to the enemy, a
mnch more numerous, but less united and less unifonnly
resolute, force now marched under the banner of Chris-
tianity, Instead of the serene fortitude with which they
formerly appeared before the tribunal of the ma^trate,
many now stood pale, trembling, and reluctant, neither
ready to submit to the idolatrous ceremony of sacrifice,
nor prepared to resist even unto death. The fiery zeal
of the African Churches appears to have been most
subject to these paroxysms of weakness;' it was there
that the fallen (the Lapsi) formed a distinct and too
numerous class, whose readmission into tlie privdeges of
the Faithful became a subject of fierce controversy;"
and the Libellatici, who had purchased a billet of immu-
nity from the rapacious Government, formed another
party, and were held in no less disrepute by those who,
in the older spirit of the failh, had been ready or eager
to obtain the crown of martyrdom.

190 CODNCIl OF CARTHAGE — VALEKIAN. BJOiltM

Carthage was disgraced by the criminal weakness
even of some among lier clergy. A Council was held
to decide this difScult point ; and the decisions of the
Council were tempered by moderation and humanity.
None were irrevocably and for ever excluded from the
pale of salvation ; but tliey were absolved, according to
the degree of criminality which might attach to their
apostasy. Those who had sacrificed — the most awful
and scarcely expiable offence I — required long yeara of
penitence and humility ; those who had only weakly
compromised their faith, by obtaining oi purchasing
billets of exemption from persecution, were admitted tOj
shorter and easier terms of reconcihatioii.**

Valerian, who ascended the throne three years s
the death of Decius, had been chosen by Deciua 1
revive, in bia person, the ancient and honourable offl

* The horror with which those who
had BBcrifi<»d werebehdd h; the more
rigorouE of thtir hr^reu amy he «ui-
celvoi from the euergetii: laoguage of
CTpiian: " Noune quando ad Cnpilo-
lium aponlc rentuin cat, qnando ultro

eit, labnTit gressiia, oiligiFit sspectuh,

mnt? Sonne sensus obilupuit, lingua
hvsit, wmio defocit F . , Ncone aia
Uki, qno moritums accessit, rogiu illi
fuit? Mounediaboli altarequod Tcetore
tetro fumare el redolere connpeierat,

itig was Uie m«t ertraordinar^
reace, of which CTprian dtclares hinnelf
to hare Wn an eyewitsegs. Ad infiut
had been abHncIoaed b; ita paraitsia
their flight. The niirse carried it to
the magirtrate. Being loo yonng to
eat meat, hread, Bt«eped
in HCriRce, was forced into ita Bioat^,
Immediatelj that
Christiana, the child, which raold
speelE, commaniciiled the seme
guilt bj cries and conmliiTe
[ions. It rettued the sacnimeat (thai
admiaialered to infknts), closed \ts lipflf
and arertei ita face. The deacon ibned
it into itn muuth. The «niKcral«d

MACEIAJJTJS THE MAGICIAN.

^B of Censor; and tbe general admiration of his virtnes
■ liad ratified the appointment of the Emperor. Tsirrion.
It was no discredit to Christianity that the *■"* ""■
commencement of the Censor's reign, who may be sup-
posed to have examined with more than ordinary earn
its influence on the public morals, was favourable to
their cause. Their security was restored, and, for a
short time, persecution ceased. The change which tooli
place in the sentiments and conduct of Valerian is
attributed to the influence of a man deeply versed in
magical arta." Tho censor was enslaved by a supersti-

»tion which the older Eomans would have beheld witli
little less abhorrenco than Christianity itself. It must
be admitted, that Christian superstition was too much
inclined to encroach upon the province of Oriental
magic; and the more the older Polytheism decayed,
tha more closely it allied itself with tliia powerful agent
in commanding the fears of man. With all classes,
from the Emperor who employed their mystic arts to
inquire into the secrets of futurity, to the peasant who
shuddered at their power, the adepts in those dark
and forbidden sciences were probably more influential
i^ponents of Chiistianity than the ancient and established
priesthood.

MacrianUB is reported to have obtained such complete
! mastery over the mind of Valerian, as to induce him to
j engage in the most guilty mysteries of magic to trace
I the fete of tbe empire in the entrails of human victims.
[ Tlie edict against the Christians, suggested by
I tiie animosity of Macrianus, allowed the eom-
I Inanity to remain in imdisturbed impunity ; but it
I Bubjected to the penalty of death all the bishops who

192

CYPRIAN. BISHOP OF CAKTUAUE

refused to conform, aud confiscated all the endowmi
of their churches into the public treasury.

The dignity of one of its vietima conferred a meli
C3mitn. choly celebrity on the persecution of Vali
cuumge. The most distinguished prelate at this
in Western Christendom was Cyprian, Bishop of Ca^■
thage. If not of honourable birth or descent, for this
appears doubtful, his abilities had nused him to eminence
and wealth. He taught rhetoric at Carthage,
either by this honourable occupation or by some othev{
means, had acquired an ample fortune. Cyprian
advanced in life when he embraced the doctrines ot^
Christianity ; but he entered on his new career, if wilfi.
the mature reason of age, with the ardour and freshneSi
of youth. His wealth was devoted to pious and cha-
ritable uses ; his rhetorical studies, if they gave clear-
ness and order to his language, by no means chilled its
fervour or constrained its vehemence. He had the ^M
African temperament of character, and, if it may be sft'^l
Baid, of style ; the warmth, the power of communicating ^^
its impassioned sentiments to the reader; perhaps not
all the pregnant conciseness, nor all the enet^, of
Tertullian, but, at the same time, httle of his rudeness
and obscurity. Cyprian passed rapidly through the
steps of Christian initiation, almost as rapidly through
the first gradations of the clerical order. On the vacancy
of the bishopric of Carthage, his reluctant diffidence was
overpowered by the acclamations of the whole city, who
environed his house, and compelled him by their friendly
violence to assume the distinguished and, it might b^
dangerous office. He yielded, to preserve the peace of
Catthage.^

EPISCOPATE OF C1[PRIAK.

^B Cyprian entertained tlie loftiest notions of the epi-
^^KOpal authority. The severe and inviolable unity of tht'
outward and visible Church appeared to him an integral
part of Christianity ; and the rigid discipline enforced
by the episcopal order the only means of maintaining
that unity. The pale which enclosed tlie Church from
the rest of mankind was drawn with the most relentless,
precision. The Church was the ark, and all without it

I,Trere left to perish in the unsparing deluge.' The growth
fif heretical discord or disobedience was inexpiable, even
J)y the blood of the transgressor. He might bear the
-^mes with equanimity ; he might submit to be torn to
pieces by wild beasts — there could be no martyr wit/i/»it
the Church. Tortures and death bestowed not the crown
of immortality ; they were but the just retribution of
treason to the faith.'

The fearful times which arose during his episcopate
tried these stem and lofty principles, as the questions
which arose out of the Decian persecutions did his
judgement and moderation. Cyprian, who embraced
without hesitation the severer opinion with regard to
the rebaptizing heretics, notwithstanding his awful
horror of the guilt of apostasy, acquiesced in, if he did
H' pot dictate, the more temperate decisions of the Car-

1
I

• Si potnit ersderB quiaquam, qui

teritne. Be Unit. Ecda.

cotia aruam Noa fuit, et qui Bjtra ec-

Et tamen neqiie hoc baptisma (san-

denam ib™ fnBxit, evadit. Cypriao,

guinis) heretico prodest, quamvis

de Unitate Ecdesite.

Cliriatmn confessns, et eitia cccleaiam

' EsK maJljr non potest, qui in

fuerit (»:ini9. Epiel. liiiii.

ecded&DODest.

■'Though 1 give my body to be

Ardeant licet Saiamvi et ignibua Ira-

burned, and have not charity, it pro-

dia, Tel objecU bratiia animaa «uaa po-

Uteth me nothing." 1 Cor. liii. 3.—

jaat, DDD erit ills 6dei corana, eed

Ifl there no diflerence between the ipirit

ygaa perfidioa, nee religiowe virtutis

of St. Paul and of Cyprian?

r TOL. n.

194

OUTCRY AGAINST CYPRIAN,

thaginian synod concerning those wliose weakness had
Betrayed them either into the public denial, or a timid
diBsiniutatiou, of the faith.

The first rumour of persecution designated the Bi
of Carthage for itsrictim, "Cyprian to the lionsl'
the loud and unanimous outerj' of infuriated Paganism.
Cyprian withdrew from the storm, not, as his subsequent
courageous behaviour showed, irom timidity ; but neither
approving that useless and sometimes ostentatious pro-
digality of life, which betrayed more pride than huTnble
acquiescence in the Divine will ; possibly from the truly
charitable reluctance to tempt his enemies to an irre-
trievable crime. He withdrew to some quiet and secure
retreat, from which he wrote animating and consolatory
letti5rfl to those who had not been so prudent or so
fortunate as to escape the persecution. His letters
describe the rolentlesa barbarity with which the Chrift-
tians were treated ; they are an autheutic and eoa1
porary sfafemeut of the sufferings which the Ch:
endured in defence of their faith. If highly coloi
by the generous and tender sympathies or by the ardenf
eloquence of Cj-prian, they have nothing of legendary
"xtravagance. The utmost art was exercised to render
Vodily suffering more acute and intense ; it
tinned strife between the obstinacy and inventive crueh
of the tormentor, and the patience of the victim.*]
During the reign of DeciuB, which appears to have '

( Tokrictis osqiie ad eoruunmis-
inain gloriie duritainuin <]Ucstioaem,
a oesaUtU lupplioiis, mi robis poliu*

QpngDahilem EAem tt

tuit ravien! diu plngn repetita

rig ruplA com page vjuccrum ; tai'qucD'

tor Id aerrii Del jam Doa merabn,

Kd Tuloera. CygviBn, Rpat. viii. ad

UartTrefl. Compare tlput. \ "

■ Chap vm. PLAGUE IN CARTHAGE. 1<J5 H

H one continned persecution, Cyjirian stood aloof in his ^M

W andisturbed retreat. He returned to Carthage probaUy ^M

at iJie commencement of Valerian's reign, and had a ^M

splendid opportunity of Cliristian revenge ujion tlie city ^|

which had thirsted for his blood. A plague n^^i^ ^1

ravaged the whole Roman world, and its most ^'^^«-
destructive violence thinned the streets of Carthage. It
Vflut spreading on from house to house, especially those
of the lower orders, with awful regularity. The streets ^M

were strewn with the bodies of the dead and the dying, ^M

who vainly appealed to the laws of nature and humanity ^M

for that assistance of which those who passed them by ^M

might soon stand in need. General distrust spread I

through society. Men avoided or exjjosed their nearest I

relatives; as if, by excluding the dying, they conld H

exclude death." No one, says the Deacon Pontius, H

writing of the population of Carthage in general, did as V

ha would be done by. Cyprian addressed the Christians
in the most earnest and effective language. He
exhorted them to show the sincerity of their cmdud'oi
belief in the doctrines of their Master, not by ineciirn-
eonfining their acts of kindliness to their own
brotherhood, but by extending them indiscriminately to
their enemies. The city was divided into districts ; offices
were assigned to all the Christians; the rich lavished
their wealth, the poor their personal exertions; and
men, perhaps just emerged from the mine or the prison,
witii the scars or mntilations of their recent tortures
Upon their bodies, were seen exposing their lives, if
I possible, to a more honourable martyrdom; as before
pthe voluntary victims of Christian faith, so now of

' Pontim, in Vita Cypriimi. Ho
■;i«re aama, fagcre, vitor^ contagiun
I BUDS imiw ; qoaai cam il

f/as

pel
cri- ^

196 CrPaiAN'S EETEEAT — HIS EETUEN. BwxH

Christian charity. Tet the Heathen party, instead of
being subdued, persisted in attributing this terrible
scourge to the impiety of tlie Chriatians, which provoked
the angry gods ; nor can we wonder if the zeal of Cyprian
retorted the ailment, and traced rather the retributira
juaticQ of the Almiglity to the wanton persecntii
inflicted on the unoffending Christians,

Cyprian did not again withdraw on the contmence^
Cyprtan'i ment of the Valerian persecution. He was
"'™''- summoned before the proconsul, wlio com-
mimicated hia instructions from the Emperor, to compel
all those who professed foreign religions to offer Baca-
fice. Cyprian refused, with tranquil determination,
was banished from Carthage. He remained in
pleasant retreat rather than place of exile, in the small
town of Ceribis, near the sea-shore, in a spot shaded
with verdant grorea, and with a clear and healthfii]
stream of water. It was provided with every comfort,
and even luxury, in which the austere nature of Cyprian
would permit itself to indulge.' But when his hour
came, tlie tranquil and collected dignity of Cyprian in
no respect fell below his lofty principles.

On the accession of a new proconsul, Galeriua Mi
Bemm lo uius, Cyprian was either recalled or permitted
'^""'•*°- to return from his exile. He resided in Ms
own gardens, from whence he received a summons to
appear before the proconsul. He would not listen to
the earnest solicitations of his friends, who entreated
him ^ain to consult his safety by withdrawing to some
place of concealment. His trial was postponed for a

I " If," sap Pontius, who visited I angela which fed Elijah and Duiiel

his muter Id faia retirement, " iastesd wauld hare mfnietared to the hidf

of thb aooDf sod ngreenble ipnt. it had Cfpriui,"
a uvi rocky (olitode, the |

Chip. Vui. HIS TBIAL AXD COKDEirxATloN. 197

day ; he was treated, while in cuBtody, with respect and
delicacy. But the intelligence of the apprehen-
sion of Cyprian drew together the whole city ; the
Heathen, eager to behold the spectacle of his martyr-
dom, the Christians, to watch in their afiectiooate zeul
at the doors of hia prison. In the morning, he had to
walk some distance, and was violently heated by the
exertion. A Christian eoldier offered to procure him
dry linen, apparently from mere courtesy, but, in
reality, to obtain such precious relics, steeped in the
"bloody sweat" of the martyr. Cyprian intimated
that it was useless to seek remedy for inconveniences
which, perhaps, would that day pass away for ever.
After a short delay, the proconsul appeared. The ex-
amination was brief- — " Art tliou Thaaciiis Cyprian, the
bishop of so many impious men ? The most sacred Em-
peror commands thee to sacrifice." Cyprian answered,
"I will not sacrifice." "Consider well," rejoined the
procoi^ul, " Execute your orders," answered Cyprian ;
" the case admits of no consideration."

Galerius consulted with his Council, and then re-
luctantly ^ delivered his sentence. " Thascins Cyprian,
thou hast lived long in thy impiety, and assembled
around thee many men involved in the same wicked
conspiracy. Thou hast shown thyself an enemy alike
to the gods and the laws of the empire ; the pious
and sacred Emperors have in vain endeavoured to recall
thee to the worsliip of thy ancestors. Since, then, thon
hast been the chief author and leader of these most
guilty practices, thou sbalt be an example to those
whom thon hast deluded to thy unlawful assembiieg.

DEATH OF DECICS ANU HIS SOIT.

»c!^H

Thoa must expiate thy crime with thy blood." Cypriaa
said, "God be thanked."" The Bishop of Carthage
was carried into a neighbouring field and beheadedb^
He maintained his serene composure to the last. It
remarkable that but a few days afterwards the procoi
died. Though he bad been in bad health, this circim>
stance was not likely to be lost ujwn the Christians.

Everywhere, indeed, the public mind was no doubt
strongly impressed with the remarkable fact, which
MiwwbiB the Christians would lose no opportunity of
SS!Ul:Sim!of enforcing on the awe-struck attention, that
LiirisiimiJir. jjjgjj. enemies appeared to be the enemies of
Heafen. An early and a fearful fate appeared to be
the inevitable lot of the persecutors of Christianity.
Their profound and earnest conviction that the hand of
Diviue Providence was perpetually and visibly inti
posing in the affairs of men would not be eo deepljrj
imbued with the spirit of their Divine Master, as toj
suppress the language of triumph, or even of vengeane^^
when the enemies of their God and of themselves eithi
suffered defeat and death, or, worse than an bononrabli

L, a cruel and insulting captivity. The death
Decius, according to the Pagan account, bad
worthy of the old Republic. He was environed by the
Goths ; his son was killed by an arrow ; he cried aload,
that the loss of a single soldier was nothing to the glory
of the empire ; be renewed the battle, and fell valiantly.
The Christian writers strip away all the more ennobl

uogv
Ldedb^

insid^l

Tigulsritj of tha whole proceediBg^
Compim the Lift of CTpriui by tha
Ueocoa Pontius ; tha AnU, in Raiout,
p. 2ie ; Care's Livet of the Aportlo,
if Sot Bit. " C jprian."

CBXe. VIU. GALLIENUS— AUItELLAN. 199

incidents. According to tlieir account, having been
decoyed by the enemy, or misled by a, treacherous
friend, into a marsh where he could neither fight nor
fly, he perished tamely, and his imburied body was left
to the beaste and carrion fowls. ■" The captivity of Va-
lerian, the mystery which hnng over hia death, allowed
ample scope to the imagination of those whose national
hatred of the barbarians would attribute the most un-
manly ferocity to the Persian conqueror, and of those
who would consider their God exalted by the most cruel
and debasing sufferings inflicted on the oppressor of tlie
Cliurch. Valerian, it was said, was forced to bend his
back that the proud conqueror might mount his horse,
as fiom a footstool ; his skin was flayed off {according
to one more modern account, while he was alive), stuffed,
and exposed to the mockery of the Persian rabble.

The luxurioufl and versatile Gallienns restored peace
to the Chuich. The edict of Valerian was oiiiimai
rescinded; the bishops resumed their pubhc i.a. ibd.
functions; the buildings were restored, and their pro-
perty, which had i)eeu confiscated by the state, restored
to the rightful owners,"

The last transient collision of Christianity with the
Grovemment before its final conflict under Dio- ion-'iui.
cletian, took place, or was at least threatened, *-»-'"'^"''
during the administration of the great Aurelian. The
reign of Aurelian, occupied by warlike campaigns in
every part of the world, left little time for attention to
the internal police, or the religious interests, of the
empire. The mother of Aurelian was priestess of the
Sou at Sirmium, and the Emperor built a temple to

B OrsL Connaat. apud Gu>«b. c niv. Lnclont. ie Mori. Perans.

200 PAUL Of SAMOSATA. BOOK^"

that deity, his tutelary god, at Eome. But the dan-
gerous wars of Aurelian required the concurrent aid of
all the deities who took an interest in the fate of Borne.
The sacred ceremony of consulting the Sibylline books,
in whose secret and mysterious kaves were written the
destinies of Rome, took place at his command. The
severe Emperor reproaches the senate for their want of
faith in these mystic volumes, or of zeal in the public
service, as though they bad been infected by the printj
ciples of Christianity." I

But there were no hostile measures taken against^
Christianity in the early part of his reign ; and he wae
summoned to take upon bimself the extraordinary ofBce
of arbiter in a Christian controversy. A new empire
seemed rising in the East, under the warlike Queen of
Palmyra. Zenobia extended her protection, with politic
iadifference, to Jew, to Pagan, and to Christian. It
might also appear that a kindred spiritual ambiticH^ I
P,,^ „i animated her favourite, Paul of Samosata, tb^fl
samowm. Bigijop of Antioch, and tliat he aspired to fouoc
a new rehgion, adapted to the kingdom of Palmyra, hjM
blending together the elements of Paganism, of Jm
daism, and of Christianity. Ambitious, dissolute, andfl
rapacious, according to the representation of his adveroB
saries, Paul of Samosata had been advanced to the^J
important see of Antioch ; but the zealous vigilance^
of the neighbouring bishops soon ihscovered that Fanll
held opinions, as to the mere human nature of thftv
Saviour, more nearly allied to Judaism than to thai
Christiau creed. The pride, the wealth, the state <
Paul, no lees offended the feehngs, and put to shamn

e of the beet, ul lenal man J

POMP OF PAUL.

Vcbap. VIII.

B the more modest demeanour and the humbler pretensiona
■ of former prelates. Ho hsd obtained, either &om the
Boman antboritiea or from Zenobia, a civil magistracy,
and prided himself more on hia title of ducenary than
of Christian bishop. He passed through the streets
environed by guards, and preceded and followed by
ijDultitudes of attendants and supplicants, whose peti-
.tiona he received and read with the stately bearing of
a public officer rather than the affability of a prelate.
His conduct in the ecclesiastical assemblies was equally
overbearing : he sat on a throne, and, while he in-

Ididged himself in every kind of theatric gesture, re-
lented the silence of those who did not receive him
.with applause, or pay homage to hie dignity. His
magnificence disturbed the modest solemnity of the
ordinary worship. Instead of the simpler music of the
Cliureh, the hymns, in which the voices of the worship-
pCTS mingled in fervent, if less harmonious, unison, Paul
organised a regular choir, in which the soft tones of
female voices, in their more melting and artificial ca-
dences, sometimes called to mind the voluptuous rites
of Paganism, and could not be heard without shuddering
by those accustomed to the more unadorned ritual."

»Tbe Hosannafi, sometimes introduced as a kind of salu-
tation to the bishop, became, it was said, the chief part
■of the service, which was rather to the glory of Paul
than of the Lord. This introduction of a new and
effeminate ceremonial would of itself, with its rigid
adversaries, have formed a ground for the charge of
dissolute morals, against which may be fairly urged
the avo^ved patronage of the severe Zenobia.' But the

202 Jj£GRADATIOK OF PAUL,

poinp of Paul's expenditure did not interfere with
iiccumulation of considerable wealth, which he extorted
from the timid zeal of his partisans, and, it was said, by
the venal administration of the judicial authority of hia
episcopate, perhaps of his civil magistracy. But Paul
by no means stood alone ; he had a powerful party
among the ecclesiastical body, the chorepiscopi of the
country districte, and the presbyters of the city. He
set at defiance the synod of bishops, who pronomiGt
a solemn sentence of excommunication ; ■■ and, seci
under the protection of the Queen of Palmyra, if
ambition should succeed in wresting Syria, with
noble capital, from the power of Rome, and in
taining her strong and inflnential position between
conflicting powers of Persia and the Empire, Panl
might hope to share in her triumph, and establish his
degenerate but splendid form of Chriatianity in the
very seat of its primitive Apostolic foundation. Panl
had staked his success upon that of his warlike pa-
troness; and on the fall of Zenobia, the bishops ap-
pealed to Aurelian to espel the rebel against their
authority, and the partisan of the Palmyrenes, who had
taken arms against the majesty of the empire, from his
episcopal dignity at Antioch. Anrelian did not alto-
gether refuse to interfere in this unprecedented cause,
but, with laudable impartiality, declined any actual
cognisance of the affair, jand transferred the sentence
from the personal enemies of Paul, the Bishops of Syria,
to those of Rome and Italy. By their sentence, Paul
was degraded Irom his episcopate.

The sentiments of Aurelian changed towards Chrieti-

' See the HStenra in EuEebius, Tii. 30, lad in RoDth. Rellquiic Sacnc, ii.

3H4P. VIII. CHAKACTER OF AUKELIAN. 203

anity near the close of his reign. The severity of his
character, reckless of human blood, would not, if com-
mitted in the strife, have hesitated at any measures
to subdue the rebellious spirit of his subjects. Sangui-
nary edicts were issued, though his death prevented
their general promulgation ; and in the fate of Aurelian
the Christians discovered another instance of the Divine
vengeance, which appeared to mark their enemies with
the sign of inevitable and appalling destruction.

Till the' reign of Diocletian, the Churches reposed in
nudisturbed but enervating security.

rEACE OF THE CHEISTUK3.

OaAPTER IX-

The PersecutioD under DiocUtiiw.

The final coatest between Paganism and Chrii
drew near. Almost three hundred years hod elapa
since the divine Author of the new religion had entered
upon his mortal life in a small village in Pales-
tine;* and now, Laving gained so powerfnl en
ascendancy over the civilised world, the Gospel was to
uudei^o its last and most trying ordeal, before it shoold
assume the reins of empire, and become the established
religion of the Roman world. It was to sustain the
deliberate and systematic attack of the temporal autho
rity, arming, iu almost every part of the empire, in
PHMofUie defence of tJie ancient Polytheism. At this
'''™"'™- crisis, it is important to survey the state of
Christianity, as well as the character of the sovereign
and of the government, which made this ultimate and
most vigorous attempt to suppress the triumphant pro-
gress of the new faith.

The last fifty years, with a short interval of menaced,
probably of actual, persecution, during the reign of
Aurelian, had passed in peace and security. The
Christiims had become not merely a public, but im
imposing and inHuential, body ; their separate ex-
istence had been recognised by the law of Gallieana;
their churches had arisen in mo»t of the cities of
the empire ; as yet, probably, with no great pre-

1, 2S4. The commencemeDt of th« pn*

L GiAP. n. eelazation of cheistian morals.

H QIAP.

H tensions to architectural grandeur, though no doubt
I ornamented by the liberality of the worshippers, and
furnished with yestmenta, and with chalices, lamps, and
chandeliers of silver. The number of these buildings
was constantly on the increase, or the crowding multi-
tudes of proselytes demanded the extension of the
narrow and Jiumble walls. The Christiana no longer
declined, or refused to aspire to, the honours of the

>Htate. They filled offices of distinction, and even of
Bupreme authority, in the provinces, and in the army ;
they were exempted, either by tacit connivance or direct
indulgence, from the accustomed sacrifices, progniBaDf
Among the more immediate attendants on the ctn"''^"?-
Emperor, two or three openly professed the Christian
faith. Prisca the wife, and Valeria, the daughter of
Diocletian and wife of Galerius, were suspected, if not
avowed, partakers of the Chriatiau mysteries," If it be
impossible to form the moat remote approximation to
their relative numbers with that of the Pagan popu-
lation, it is equally erroneous to estimate their strength
and infl.uence by numerical calculation. All political
changes are wrought by a compact, organised, and dis-
cipHned minority. The mass of mankind are shown by
experience, and appear fated by the constitution of our
nature, to follow any vigorous impulse from a deter-
mined and incessantly aggressive few.

The long period of prosperity had produced in the
Christian community its usual consequences, ^^ ^^

some relaxation of morals: but Christian charity ^^^^
had probably suffered more than Christian ufcbhtttan
purity. The more flourishing and extensive
the community, the mora the pride, perhaps the

20C

CH.1BACTBK OF DIOCLETIAN.

temporal advantages, of Buperiority, predominated ovtii
tho Christian motives which led men to aspire to t" '
supreme functions in the Church. Sacerdotal dom
natioa began to exercise its awful powers, and T
bishop to assume the language and the authority of t
vit-egereut of God. Feuds distracted the bosom of the
peaceful communities, and dispntes sometimes proceeded
to open violence- Such is the melanclioly confession of
the Christians themselves, who, according to the spiif "
of the times, considered the dangers and the afSictica
to which they were exposed in the light of divine judgl
ments ; and deplored, perhaps with something of t'
exaggeration of religious humiliation, the visible dec
of holiness and peace,'' But it b the strongest proof a
the firm hold of a party, whether religious or political
upon llie public mind, when it may offend with impunity
agaiioet its own primary principles. That which at one
time is a sign of incurable weakness or approaching Ais-
solution, at another seems but the excess of healthful
energy and the evidence of unbroken vigour.

The acta of Diocletian are the only trustworthy h "
of his character. The son of a slave, or, at all e

bom of obscure and doubtlul parentage, '
Wocfcu™. ,,, , ■ ^ _ f --^ >

conld force his way to sovereign jiower, t
and accomplish the design of reconstructing the wbd
empire, must have been a man, at least, of stR
political courage, of profound, if not always wise E
statesmanlike views. In the pereon of Diocletian, 1
Emperor of Rome became an Oriental monarch.
old republican forms were disdainfully cast a!
consuls and tribunes gave way to new officers,
adulatory and uu-Roman appellations. Diocletian h

.jChap. IX. CHANGE liS STATE OF THE EaPIIlE.

107

gelf assumed the new title of Dominus or Lord, which
gave offence even to the servile and flexible rehgion of
Sis Pagan Bubjects, who reluctantly, at first, paid the
.jbomage of adoration to the master of the world,

Nor was the ambition of Diocletian of a narrow or
personal character. With the pomp, he did not Moci,tua.
laffect the solitude, of an Eastern despot. The ^^K^f'S,^
necessity of the state appeared to demand the ™i''"-
. active and perpetual presence of more than one person
invested with sovereign authority, who might organise
the decaying forces of the different divisions of the
..empire, against the menacing hosts of barbarians an
«very frontier. Two Augusti and two Cffisars shared
ihe dignity and the cares of the public administration* —
a meaaure, if expedient for the security, fatal to the
prosperity, of the exhausted provinces, which found
themselves burdened with the maintenanpe of four im-
perial establishments. A new system of taxation was
imperatively demanded, and relentlessly introduced,"
while the Emperor seemed to mock the bitter and
ill-suppressed murmurs of the provinces, by his lavish
expenditure in magnificent and ornamental buildings.
That was attributed to the avarice of Diocletian, which
arose out of the change in the form of government, and
in some degree out of his sumptuous ta.'fte in that parti-
'Colar department, the embellishment, not of Eome
(mly, but of the chief cities of the empire — Miian, Car-
th^e, and Nicomedia. At one time, the all-p
government aspired, after a season of scarcity, to regulate

In the Leben Constontina dea Grod-

by Monao, Uisre ia a gnod discm-

oa tho Biilhurity nad relative

foiition of tha Augusti and tiie Caan.

- ~ ' 'iie r^U of

208 NEGLECT OF ROME.

the prices of all commodities, and of all iiiterchai
whether of labour or of bargain and sale, between n
and man. This singular and gigantic effort of ■
meaning but naistaken deapotism has come to light ll
the present day. ^ _

Among the innovations introduced by Diocletian,
Neglect at Hone, perhaps, was more closely connected with
^™"' the interests of Christianity than the virtual
degradation of Rome from the capital of the empire, bj '
the constant residence of the Emperor in other citiei
Though the old metropolis was not altogether neglecte
in the lavish expenditure of the public wealth upon n
edifices, either for the convenience of the people or th«>l
splendour of public solemnities, yet a larger share feE
to the lot of other towns, particularly of Nicomet
In this city, the Emperor more frequently displayed t
Dew state of his imperial court, while Kome was rarelj'
honoured by his presence. Nor was his retreat^ when '
wearied with political strife, on the Campanian coast, in
the Bay of Baiie, which the older Romans had girt witi
their splendid seats of retirement and liisnry ; it was
on the Illyrian and barbarous side of the Adriatic thatrV
the palace of Diocletian arose, and his agricultural C
establishment spread its narrow belt of fertility. The*!
removal of the seat :f government more clearly dis
covered the magnitude of the danger to the existing'!
institutionB from the progress of Christianity, The East-^
was, no doubt, more fully peopled with Christians thaa.^
any part of the Western world, unless, perhaps, the*f
province of Africa ; at all events, their relative rank, I

■ Edict of DlDcleliao, published and i > fta 3em|ier demeaUtot,
iUmlratciI by Cal. Leake. It iealluded mlnm stndens urbi Ramie a
to in ikt TreBtiae De Mortibu* Be Moi-t Peraecut C, vii.
Pereeout. C. vij. '

THE CHURCH UNDER UIOClETLVN.

2oy

health, and importance, much more nearly balitnceii
pthat of the adherents of the old Polytheism." In Rome,
the ancient majesty of the national religion must still
•b&ye kept down in comparative obscurity the aspiring
rrivalry of Christianity. The Praator atill made way for
the pontifical order, and submitted his fasces to the
vestal virgin, while the Christian bishop pursued liis
humble and unmarked way. The modest church or
chnrchee of the Christians lay hid, no doubt, in some
flequestered street or in the obscure Transteverine region,
and did not venture to contrast themselves with the
stately temples on which the ruling people of the world
and the sovereigns of mankind had for ages lavished
their treasures. However the church of the metropolis
of the world might maintain a high rank in Christian
estimation, might boast its antiquity, its Apostolic origin,
or at leaat of being the scene of Apostolic mflrtyrdom,
and might number many distinguished proselytes in all
ranks, even in the imperial court; still Paganism, in
this stronghold of its most gorgeous pomp, its hereditary
eaoctity, its intimate connexion with all the inatitu-
I tions, and its incorporation with the whole ceremonial

* Tertallian, Apnlog. o. 37. Mr.
CDaCfbeare (Bampton Lectures, page
346) hsa drawn b turions inference
fVom K passage id this cluster of Tei'-
tulliaa, that the majority of thoH who
had a right of ciCizeoshrp In those
dtiet had embraml the Cbristian faith,
while the mobs were Its mast furious
opponent*. It appean unquestionable
that the Btrenglh of Christianity lay in
the Biiditle, perhaps the ineTcantile,
bluses. The lait two books at the
[ PiidogogoE ofCleineDt of Alexandria,
111 authoril; for Christiia
VOL. IL

tnaDnen at that time, inveigh against

community' : splendid dresses, jewels,
gold and tilTei vrasels, rich banquetf,
gilded litten and chariola, and private
baths. The ladled kept Indian birds,
Median peacocks, monkeys, and Halte«

and orphaos; the mra had mnltiiude.
of elavea. The siilh (tapter of the
tiurd book—" that the Christian alone
is rich"— would haye been unmeaning
if «ddiesBed to ■ poor community.

210

RELlUlU^i OP UIOCLETUX.

of public ftfEairs ; in Rome, must have maintained nt
least its outward supremacy. ' But, in comparison with
the less imptsiog dignity of the municipal government
or the local priesthood, the Bishop of Aotioch or Nico
media was a far greater person thau the predecessor of
the popes among tlie cousulai-s and the senate, the
hereditary aristocracy of the old Roman fatnih'es or
the ministers of the ruling Emperor. In Nicomedia, the
Christian church, an edifice at least of considerable
strength and solidity, utood on an eminence commanding
the town, and conspicuous above the palace of the
Bovereign.

Diocletian miglit seem born to accomplish that re^
lution which took place so soon after, under the
of Coustantine. The new constitution of the empire
might appear to require a reconstruction of the religious
Bystem. The Emperor, who had not scrupled to aceom-
modate the form of the government, without respect to
the ancieut majesty of Rome, to the present position of
affairs — to degrade the capital itself into the rank of a
provincial city — and to prepare the way, at least, for the
removal of the seat of government to the East, would
BdigiDD or have been withheld by no scruples of venera-
'*^''™" tion for ancient rites or ancestral ceremonies,
if the establishment of a new religion had appeared

were more thsn forty cburches ia Rome
nt Ibe time of the peisecutioD of Dio-
cletiaD. It hiu been nEnal to calculnte
one church tor each presbjtar ; whicb
vDiilii suppo^ B falllng-off'. ot Irait no
inci-nue, diiriog llie intetvel. But
eome of the presbj-teri leckooed by
Cornelius maj bate been superennu-
ated, or in piiKiii, and liitii place tup-
piied bj otiicn.

I In ■ lettffl of Cornelius bishop of
RonM. vrittea dnriug or aooa after tlis
nlgn of Dedua, the ministerial atab-
liihment of the Church in Kome is thai
tMal: — One biihop; forty-sii pres-
bjrler* ; seven deacons ; Boven sub-
denoona; fartj-twa acol^tiu or attrii-
duta; flftf-twa ejorcials, readera, and
dooikeepen; 6fteen hundred widows
will poor. Eaacb. vi, 43.

Optatni, lib. ii., Btatea (hat tberc

ymv VACANISM.

EP.IS.
harmnniso mtb his general policy. But his mind
; Dot yet ripe for such a change ; nor perhaps hie
knowledge of Christiaiiity and its profound and nnseeii
inflaence, sufficiently extensive. In his asBumption of
the title Jovina, while his colleague took that of Hercu-
line, Diocletian gave a public pledge of his attachment
to the old Polytheiam, Among the cares of his admi-
sietration, he by no means neglected the purification of

I the ancient religions.* In Paganism itself, Nfwpjgin.
ikot silent but manifest change, of which we '™-
^ve already noticed the commencement, had been
creeping on. The new philosophic Polytheiam which
.Julian attempted to establish on the ruins of Chris-
tianity was still endeavouring to supersede the older
poetic faith of-the Heathen nations. It had not even
yet come to sufflcient maturity to offer itself as a for-
midable antagonist to th» religion of Christ This nsw
Paganism, as has been observed, arose out of the alliance
of the philosophy and the religion of the old world.
These once implacable adreraaries had reconciled their
diderences, and coalesced against the common enemy,
Christianity itself had no slight influence upou the
formation erf the now system; and now an Eastern
element, more and more strongly dominant, mingled
with the whole, and lent it-, as it were, a visible object
of worship. From Chriatianity, the new Paganism had
adopted the Unity of the Deity ; and scrupled not to
*ctegrade all the gods of the older world into subordinate
daemons or ministers. The Christians had worBhfpat
incautiously held the same language: both ""^''"■
J concurred in the name of diemons ; but tlie Pagans
I used the phraae in the Platonic sense, aa good, but sub-

212 W02SH1P OF THE SUfl. Book IL

ordinate, spirits ; while the Bame term spoke to the
Christian ear as expressive of malignant and diabolic
agency. But the Jupiter Optimus Mazimus was not
the great Supreme of the new system. The universal
deity of the East, the Sun, to the philosophic was the
emblem or representative, to the vulgar, the Deity.
Diocletian himself, though he paid so much deference
to the older faith as to assume the title of Jovius, as
belonging to the Lord of the world, yet, on his accession,
when he would exculpate liimself from all concern in
the murder of his predecessor Numerian, appealed in the
face of the army to the all-seeing deity of the Sun. It
is the oracle of Apollo of Miletus, consulted by the
hesitating Emperor, which is to decide the fate of Chris-
tianity. The metaphorical language of Christianity had
unconsciously lent strength to this new adversary ; and,
in adoring the visible orb, some, no doubt, supposed
that they were not departing lar from the worship of the ■
" Sun of Righteousness," "

But though it might enter into the imagination (
an imperious and powerfiil sovereign to fuse together
these conflicting faiths, the new Paganism was begi
ning to advance itself as the open and most dangero
adversary of the religion of Christ. Hierocles, !
great Hierophaut of the Platonic Paganism, is
tinctly named as the author of the persecution i
Diocletian."

Thus, then, an irresistible combination of cu
stances tended to precipitate the fatal crisis. The wlu

■ Hermogenes,oneof the olderbere-
lUrchs, applied the text " he hss placed
iiB tabonmcle in the son" to Cfimt,
aii assertHi that Clirist had put off bii
DOitr in the auQ. PoDtxaui ap, Routh,

t!eiiquiie Socrs, i. 339.

* Another [^iiloso[^c fuhci-
Ushed a work agiiiut the Chris
S« Fleuiy, p. 462, from Terl "■

CHtf. IS. CAUTIOUS POLICY OF DIOCLETIAN. 213

political scheme of Diocletian was incomplete, unlesa
eome distinct and decided course was taken with these
gelf-govemed corporations, who rendered, according to
the notions of the time, such imperfect allegiance to
the sovereign power. But the cautious disposition of
Diocletian, his deeper insight, perhaps, into the real
nature of the struggle which would tate place ; hia
advancing age, and, possibly, the latent and depressing
influence of the malady which may then have been
hanging over him, and which, a short time after, brought
him to the brink of the grave ; " these conairrent mo-
tivee would induce him to sbnnk from violent measures ;
to recommend a more temporising policy ; and to con-
sent, with difficult reluctance, to the final committal
of the imperial authority in a contest in which the
complete submission of the opposite party could only be
expected by those who were altogether ignorant of its
strength. The imperial power had much to lose in an
Bnanccessful contest ; it was likely to gain, if Buccessful,
only a temporary and external conquest. On the one
hand, it was urged by the danger of permitting a vast
and self-governed body to coexist with the general
institutions of the empire ; ran the other, if not a civil
■war, a contest which would array one part of almost
every city of the empire against the other in domestic
hostility, might appear even of more perilous conse-
quenoe to the public welfare.

The party of the old religion, now strengthened by

* The char^ afderangemeDt, vhich I treat, the ropect paiit to him bjr hii
n>ti on the BUthorily of Conilaniii*, turbulent and ambitious colleH^uw ;
•1 relntrd bj Euiebiai, ia auHicientl; and the inToluntuy iofliicnci! whioh b«
siiiiruEri I7 the dignity of hli itidiui- itill Bppnti'ed to EieniK over thi
tloD, [lie pLflcid content with which nSiiiri u! the empire,
he Hppraied to enjuj bu piaeeful re- 1

^14 SEXTIJLEXTS OF THE PHILOSOFHIC PARTT.

the aeceasion of the pliiioeophic faction, risl

and mieht expect much, from the ri;
omfbHsmf svBtematic, and uiuveraal iDterreutioii of

'''^' civil anthority. It was dear that nothi
less would restore its superiority to the decaying oai
of Polytheism. Nearly three centuries of tame and
passive comaivance, or of open toleration, had only in-
creased the growing power of Christianity, while it had
not in the least allayed that spirit of moral conqat
which avowed that its ultimate end was the total
tinction of idolatry.

But in the army, the parties were placed in nu
ineritable opposition ; and in the army commenced
first overt acta of hostility, vfhich were the prognosttce
of the general pei'secutiou," Nowhere did the old
Koman religion retain so much hold upon the mind as
among the sacred eagles. Without sacrifice to the
givHrs of victory, the superstitious soldiery would ad-
vance, divested of their usual confidence, against the
enemy ; and defeat was ascribed to some impious omia-
sion in the ceremonial of propitiating the gods. Tba^
Chiistiana now formed no nnimportant part in thi
nrmy: though permitted by the ruling authorities
abstain from idolatrous conformity, their contempt
the auspices which promised, and of the rites whi<
insured, tlie divine favour, would be looked upon with^
e({ual awe and aniniosity. The unsuccessful gem
aud the routed army, would equally seize every excuBfl'
to cover the misconduct of the one, or the cowardice rf
the other. In the pride of victorj-, the pi-esent deitiwi
of Kome would share the honour with Bomau valour

had
itice^B

CbAF. IS.. DELllSEEATlOrfS AS TO CHRISTIANITY. 215

tiie assistauce of the ChristJans would be forgotten in
defeat ; the reBentment of the gods, to whom that defeat
would be attributed, would be ascribed by t!ie Pagans
to the impiety of their godlesa comrades. An incident
of this kind took place, during one of liia campaigns, in
the presence of Diocletian. The army was assembled
aronnd the altar; the sacrificing priest in vain sought
for the accustomed signs in the entraUs of the victim ;
the sacrifice was again and again repeated, but always
with the same result. Tiie baffled soothsayer, trembling
with awe or with indignation, denouniied the presence
of profane strangers. The Christians had been seen tti
l&ake, perhaps boasted that they had made, the sign of tiie
i, and put to flight the impotent dsemong of idolatroiis
worship. They were apprehended, and commanded to
aacriiice ; and a general edict was issued that all who
refused to pay honour to the martial deities of Eome
should be expelled from the army. It is far irom
improbable that frequent incidents of this nature may
have occurred ; if in the imsuccessful campaign of Gale-
rins in the East, nothing was more likely to embitter
flie mind of that violent Emperor against the whole
Community. Nor would this animosity be allayed by
(he success with which Galerius retrieved his former
failure. While the impiety of the Christians would be
charged with all the odium of defeat, they would never
be permitted to participate in the glories of victoiy.

During the winter of the year of Christ 302-3, the
great qaestion of the policy to be adopted to-
wards the Christians was debated, first in a Bmcpmii^
private conference between Diocletian and
Galerius. Diocletian, though urged by his more vehe-
ment partner in the empire, was averse from sanguinaiy
proceedings, ii'om bloodshed and coiii'usion ; lie was in-

degraafl

" jialace

; of the
ofessed

mottujl^H

clined to more temperate measures, which would dej
the Chriatiaais from every post of rank or authority, a
expel them from the palace and the army. The jialace *
itself was divided by conflicting factions. Some of the
chief officers of Diocletian's household openly professed
Christianity ; bis wife and his daughter were at lea«^j
favourably disposed to the same cause; while tlie mot
of Galerius, a fanatical worshipper, probably of Cybi
was seized with a spirit of proselytisiu, and celebrate
almost every day a splendid sacrifice, followed by a
Ijiinquet, at wliich she required the presence of the
whole court. The pertinacious resistance of the Chrii
tians provoked her implacable resentment ; i
influence over her son was incessantly employed
inflame his mind to more active animosity.

Diocletian at length consented to summon a cooi
formed of some persons versed in the a
tration of the law, and some military m«i.''
Of these, one party were aheady notoriously hostile to
Christianity ;' the rest were courtiers, who bent to every
intimation of the imperial favour. Diocletian still
prolonged his resistance,' till, either to give greater
solemnity to tlie decree, or to identify their measures
more completely with the cause of Polytheism, it wsi
determined to consult the oracle of Apollo at Y"
The answer of the oracle might be anticipated;
Diocletian submitted to the irresistible united author

« HiFrodu, the philoaopher,
probably > member dC this eon
Mwhum, p. 922.

' AieordiBe lo (he iinfrieodlr rfpre- I
' ID of tfaeiDthor of the treatise
Oa Mori. Pers., whow vif w of Diocle-
Ii«n'» dararter is tonfirmed bj tluti

Chap. IX, EDICT OF PEESECDTION, 217

of his friends, of Galeriua, aud of the God, and contented
himself with modemting the eeverity of the edict. Gale-
riua proposed that all who refused to sacrifice should be
burned alive: Diocletian stipulated that there should
be no loss of life.

A fortunate day was chosen for the execution of the
imperial decree. The feast of Terminalia was Edictofwt,
inseparably connected with tJie stabOity of the '™'"'™-
Boman power; that power which waa so manifestly
endangered by the progress of Christianity. At the
dawn of day, the Prefect of the city appeared jupobuc.
at the door of the church in Nicomedia, at- "°°-
tended by the officers of the city and of the court. The
doors were instantly thrown down ; the Pagans beheld
with astonishment the vacant space, and sought in rain
for the statue of the deity. The sacred books were
instaiitly burced, and the rest of the furniture of the
building plundered by the tumultuous soldiery. The
Emperors commanded from the palace a full view of
the tumult and apohation, for the church stood iBCKcnu™
on a height at no great distance ; and Galerius "^ ^i™"^!*-
wished to enjoy the apectacle of a conflagration of
the building. The more prudent Diocletian, fearing
that the fire might spread to the splendid edifices which
adjoined it, suggested a more tardy and less imposing
plan of demolition. The pioneers of the Prastorian
guard advanced with their tools, and in a few hours the
whole building was razed to the ground.

The Christians made no resistance, but anaited in
silent consternation the promulgation of tlie fatal edict.
On the next morning it appeared. It was Iramed in
terms of the sternest and most rigorous proscription,
short of the punishment of death. It comprehended all
ranks and orders under its sweeping and inevitable

218

EDICT TORN DOWy.

proviBions. Throughout Uje empire, the c)mrches i
th« Christians were to be levelled with the ground ;
public existenne of the religion wna thus to be annihi'')
lated. The sacred books were to be delivered, undCT I
paui of death, by their legitimate guardiaiis, tlie bishops I
aud presbyters, to the imperial officers, and publicly 1
burnt. The philosophic party thus hoped to extirpate 1
those pernicious writingB with which they in vain con* I
tested the supremacy of the public mind.

The property of the churches, whether endowmento I
in land or furniture, was confiscated ; all public b
blies, for the purposes of worship, prohibited ; the
Christians of rank and distinction were degraded from
all their offices, and declared incapable of filling any
situation of trust or authority ; those of the plebeian
order were deprived of the right of Koman citizenship,
which secured the sanctity of their persons from corporal
chastisement or torture ; slaves were declared incapable
of claiming or obtaining liberty ; the whole race were I
placed without the pale of the law, disqualified irom^
appealing to its protection in case of wrong, as of pei*«i I
sonal injury, of robbery, or adultery ; wiiile they were' I
liable to civil actions, bound to bear all the burdens dP I
the state, and amenable to all its penalties. In many- [
places, an altar was placed before the tribunal of justice* >
on which the plaintiff was obliged to sacrifice, before'
his cause could obtain a hearing."

No sooner had this edict been affixed in the customary' '
Ed^ii^ place, than it was torn down by the hand of a ,
*"™- rash and indignant Christian, who added insult; J

to his offence by a contemptuous inscription ; " Such are '
the victories of the Emperors over the Goths and Sar-. I

• EuBeb. viii. 2, Dd Hart. Pi.'rKCiit. apud Laclaatiuin.

Chw rx, FIRE IS THE PALACE. 219

matians."' This outrage on the Imperial majesty was
expiated by tJie death of the delinquent, who ayowed
hia glorious crime. Although less discreet Christians
might secretly dignify the sufferings of the victim with
the honours of martyrdom, they could only venture to
approve the patience with which he bore the agony of
being roasted alive by a slow fire."

The prudence or the moderation of Diocletian had
rejected the more violent and sanguinary counsels of
the Cfesar, who had proposed that all who refused to
sacrifice should be bnmed alive. But Jiis personal
terrors triumphed over the lingering influence of com-
passion or justice. On a sudden, a fire buret Fiwipite
out in the palace of Nicomedia, which spread Ntemnifa.
almost to the chamber of the Emperor. The real origin
of this fatal conflagration is unlmown; and notwith-
Btanding the various causes to wliieli it was ascribed by
the fears, the malice, and the superstition of the different
classes, we may probably refer the whole to accident.
It may have arisen from the hasty or injudicious con-
struction of a palace built but recently. One account
ascribes it to lightning. If this opinion obtained general
belief among the Christian party, it would, no doubt, be
considered, by many, a visible sign of the Divine ven-
geanca, on account of the promulgation of the imperial
edict. The Oliristians were accused by the indignant
voice of the Heathen ; they retorted, by throwing the
guilt upon the Emperor Galerius, who had practised (so
the ecclesiastical historian suggests) the part of a secret
incendiary, in order to criminate the Christians and
alarm Dioclesian into his more violent measures,"

Tlie obvious impolicy of such a meaam^e, as the

Michfim. De F^eb, Chriit. • Eiiseb. viii, 5. ■ EiueU; viii. fi.

E20 COSSEQUESCES OP THE CONFLAGRATION. Book IB

chance of actually destroying both their imperial enemiea
in the fire must have been very remote, and (fe it conld
only darken the subtle mind of Diocletian with the
blackest suspicions and madden Galerius to more
unmeasured hostility, must acquit the Christians of any
such design, even if their high principles, their sacred
doctrines of peaceful submission under the direst per»
secution, did not place them above all suspicion. The
only Christian who would have incurred ^e guilt, at
provoked upon his innocent brethren the danger in-
separable from such an act, would have been some
desperate fanatic, like the man who tore down the edict.
And such a man would have avowed and gloried in tbs
act ; he would have courted the ill-deserved honours of
martyrdom. The silence of Constantine may cleax
Galerius of the darker charge of contriving, by these
base and indirect means, the destruction of a par^
against which he proceeded with undisguised hostility;
Galerius, however, as if aware of the ftill effect with
which such an event would work on the mind of Dior
cletian immediately left Nicomedia, declaring that ha
could not consider his person safe within that city.

The consequences of this fatal conflagration were
disastrous, to the utmost extent which their woiat
enemies could desire, to the whole Christian community,
The officers of the household, the inmates of the palace,
were exposed to the moat cruel tortures, by the order,
it is said in the presence, of Diocletian. Even the
females of the Imperial family were not exempt, if from
the persecution, from that suspicion which demanded
the clearest eridence of their Paganism. Prisca and
Valeria were constrained to pollute themselves with
sa^'rifice ; the powerful eunuchs, Dorotheus and Goi^
gonius and Andreas, suffered death ; Authimus, the

r
I

PERSECDllON BECOMES GENERAL.

221

Bisliop of Nicomedia, waa beheaded. Many were ex-
ecuted, many burnt alive, many laid bound, witli stones
round their necks, in boats, rowed into the midst of the
lake, and thrown into the water.

From Nicomedia, the centre of the persecution, the
impeml edicts were promulgated, though with
less than the usual rapidity, through the East hqq bKomu
Letters were despatched requiring the co- ""'
operation of the Western Emperors, Maximian, the
associate of Diocletian, and the Cjesar Con-
stautius, in the restoration of the dignity of the
ancient religion, and the suppression of the hostile faith,
Constantius made a show of concurrence in the measures
of hia colleagues ; he commanded the demolition of the
churches, but abstained from all violence against the
persons of the Christians." Gaul alone, his favoured
province, was not defiled by Christian blood. The
fiercer temper of Maximian only awaited the signal,
and readily acceded, to carry into effect the barbarous
edicts of his colleagues.

In almost every part of the world, Christianity found
itself at once assailed by the full force of the civil
power, constantly goaded on by the united influence of
the Pagan priesthood and the philosophic party. Nor
was Diocletian, now committed in the desperate strife,
content with the less tyrannical and eanguinaiy edict
of Nicomedia. Vague rumours of insurrection, some
tumultuary risings in regions which were densely peopled
with Christians, and even the enforced assumption of

r Eusebiai, whosa pan«g7ric on CoB-
inline throws bock aome of iu nduk-

tlon upon his father, makes CoiuUiitiut
-inian, wilh the ChrlatUa lerricc

l^ularlf perfnrmed In hi» pulooe, Vit,

Constimt. G. 33. The eiaggeratioti
tbi« BtaUmeDt 19 eipised l:^ F'igi,
Knn, 303, n, viii. Mosheim, DeR«i
ante Const. Mag. p. 938-935.

ILLNESS OF DIOCLETIAN.

tbe purple by two adventurere, one in Armenia, anotbex i
in Antioch, seemed to countenance the charges of poll*
tical ambition, and the design of armed and vigorotU 1

It ia the worst evil of religious contests that the civil
power cannot retract without the humiliating confeseion
of weakness, and must go on increasing in the severity
of its measures. It soon finds that there is no success
short of the extermination of tbe adversary ; and it has
but the alternative of acknowledged failure or this
internecine warfare. The demolition of the chnrches
might remove objects offensive to the wounded pride of
the dominant Polytheism ; the destruction of the sacred
books might gratify the jealous hostility of the philoBO*
phic party ; but not a single community was dissolved.
The precarious submission of the weaker Christians only
confirmed the more resolute opposition of the stronger
and more heroic adherents of Christianity,

Edict followed edict, rising in regular gradations of
angry barbarity. The whole clergy were declared
enemies of the stata ; fbey were seized wherever a
hostile Prefect chose to put forth his boundless autho-
rity ; and bishops, presbyters, and deacons were crowded
into the prisons intended for the basest malefactors. A
new rescript prohibited tbe liberation of any of these
prisoners, unless they should consent to offer sacrifice.

During the promulgation of these rescripts, Diocletias
celebrated his triumph in Rome ; he held a conference
with the CEesar of Africa, who entered into hia rigorous
measures. On his return to Nicomedia,'he was
seized with that long and depressing malady
which, whether or not it affected him with temporary
derangement, secluded him within the impenetrable
precincta of the palace, whose sacred secrets were for-

r
I

HIS ABDIL'ATIOS — ITS IlESCLTS.

223

bidden to be betrayed to the popular ear. This rigid
concealment gave currency to every kind of gloomy
rumour. The whole Roman world awaited with mingled
anxiety, hope, and apprehension, the news of his disso-
lution. Diocletian, to the universal astonish- Anri.bdiw
ment, appeared again in the robes of empire ; ^li„""°'
to the still greater general astonishment, he ''"^ ^'
appeared only to lay them aside, to abdicate the throne,
and to retire to the peaceful occupation of fiis palace and
agricultural villa on the Illyrian shore of the Adriatic.
His colleague Maximian, with ill-dissembled reluctance,
followed the example of his associate, patron, and coad-
jutor in the empire.

The great scheme of Diocletian, the joint adminis-
tration of the empire by associate Augusti, mth their
subordinate Cgesars, if it hod averted for a time the
dismemberment of the empire, and had infused some
vigour into the provincial governments, had introduced
other evils of appalliog magnitude ; but its fatal consfr
quences were more manifest directly the master hand
was withdrawn which had organised the new machine of
government. Fierce jealousy succeeded at once among
the rival Emperors to deceut concord ; all subordination
was lost ; and a succession of civil wars between the
contending sovereigns distracted the whole ajnani
world. The earth groaned under the separate '°'^'^'
tyranny of its many masters ; and, according to tlie
strong expression of a rhetorical writer, the grinding
taxation had so exhausted the proprietors and the culti-
cators of the soil, the merchants, and the artisans, that
none remained to tax but beggars." The sufferings of
the Christians, however, still inilicted with unremittiug

Z24

GALEalUS EMPEEOR OF THE EAST.

barbarity, were lost in tlie commun sufferinga of mj
kind. The rights of Bomaa citizeDsIkip, which had
beea violated in their persons, were now universally
neglected ; and, to extort money, the chief persons of
the towns, tbe unhappy decuriona, who were responsible
for the payment of the contributions, were put to tlie,
tortura Even tbe punishment, the roasting by a sl<
fire, — invented to force the conscience of the devotrt!
Chrifltians, — was borrowed, in order to wring the re-
luctant impost from the unhappy provincial.

The abdication of Diocletian left the most implaeable
GiieriMEm- enemy of Christianity, Galerius, master of the
tast. East ; and in the East the persecution of

the Christians, as well as the general oppression of the
M«iioio subjects of the empire, continued in unmitigated
'**^- severity. The nephew of Galerius tbe Cffisar*

Maxiinin Daias, was tbe legitimate heir to his releiitle«<
violence of temper, and to hia stem hostility to the
Christian name. In the West, the assumption of the
purple by Maxentius, the son of the abdicated Maximiaa
(Herculius), had no unfavourable effect on tbe situation
of the Christians. They suffered only with the reat
of their fellow-subjects from the vices of Max-
entius. If their matrons and virgins were not
secure from his lust, it was the common lot of all who,
although of the highest mnlc and dignity, might attract
his insatiable passions. If a Christian matron, the wife
of a senator, submitted to a voluntary death' rather
than to tbe loss of her honour, it was ber beauty, not
her Christianity, which marked ber out as the
victim of the tyrant. It was not until Constan-
tino began to develope his ambitious views of reuniting

lao-i^^H
hadV

COKSTANTINE.

^B UUP. ss,

^P tbe dismembered monarchy, that Maxentiua threw him-

V Beli, as it were, upon the ancient goda of Eome, and

identified hia own cause with that of Polytheism.

At this juncture all eyes were turned towards the
elder son of Constantius. If not already recognised by
the prophetic glance of devout hope as the first Chris-
tian sovereign of Rome, he seemed placed by providential
wisdom as the protector, as the head, of the Christian
interest The enemies of Christianity were bis ; and if
he was not, as yet, bound by the hereditary attachment
of a sou to the religion of his mother Helena, hia father
ConatantiuB had bequeathed him the wise example of
humanity and toleration. Placed as a hostage in the
handa of Galerins, Constantino bad only escaped from
the honourable captivity of the Eastern court, where he
had been exposed to constant peril of his life, by the
ppomptitude and rapidity of his moveroenta. He had
fled, and during the first stages maimed the post-horses
which might have been employed in his pursuit.
During the persecution of Diocletian, Conatontius alone,
of all the Emperors, by a dexterous appearance of sub-
mission, had screened the Christians of Gaul from the
common lot of their brethren. Nor was it probable
that Constantino would render, on this point, more
willing allegiance to the sanguinary mandates of Ga-
lerins. At present, however, Constantine stood rather
aloof from the afTairs of Italy and tbe East ; and till
the resumption of the purjile by the elder Maximian,
his active mind was chiefly employed in the consoli-
dation of his own power in Gaul, and the repulse of
the German barbarians who threatened the frontier
of the Ehina

Kotwithstanding that the persecution had now lasted
or six or seven years, in no part of the world did

CHEISTIAN EXDORANCE,

Christiamty betray any signs of vital decay. It was far ■
deeply rooted in tlie minde of men, far too
tensively promulgated, far too vigorously orgatb-
ized, not to endure tliis violent but unavailing shock. If
its public worsbip was suspended, the believers met in
secret, or cherished in the unassailable privacy of the
heart the inalienable rights of conscience. If it suffered
numerical loss, the body was not weakened by the
severance of its more feeble and worthless memberB.
suifcrtngi The inert resistance of the general mass wearied
Urns. out the vesatiouH and harassing measures of the

Government. Their numbers secured them again^
general extermination ; but, of course, the persecuti(Hi
fell most heavily upon the most eminent of the body*
upon men who were deeply pledged by the sense (^'
sbame and honour, even if, in any case, the noblet
motives of conscientiouB faith and courageous oonfldenM
in the truth of the religion were wanting, to bear with
unyielding heroism the utmost barbarities of the peree-
cutor. Those who submitted performed the hated cere-
mony with visible reluctance, with trembling hand,
averted countenance, and deep remorse of heart; thoM
who resisted to death were animated by the presence <rf
multitudes who, if they dared not applaud, could scarcely
conceal their admiration. Women crowded to kiss the
hems of their garments, and their scattered ashes, ot
unburied bones, were stolen away by the devout zeal of
their adherents, and already began to be treasured at
incentives to faith and piety. It cannot be supposed
that the great functionaries of the state, the civil or
military governors, could be so universally seared to
humanity, or so incapable of admiring these frequent
examples of patient heroism, as not either to mitigate in
9ome degree the sufferings which they were bound ta

es>i^H

I
I

GALEHIUS.

inflict, or even to feel Bonie secret sympathy with the
blameless Victims whom they condemned. That sym-
pathy might ripen, at a more tbrtimate period, into
sdntimeiita still moro favourable to the Christian cause.

The most signal and unexpected triumph of Chris-
tianity was over the author of the persecution, "While
victory and success appeared to follow that party in the
state which, if they had not as yet openly espoused the
cause of Christianity, had unquestionably its most ardent
prayers in their favour, the enemies ot the Christians
were amitten mth the direst calamities, and the Almigiity
appeared visibly to exact the most awful vengeance for
their sufferings. Galerius himself was forced, as it were,
to implore mercy; not indeed in the attitude of penitence,
but of profoiuid humiliation, at the toot of the Christian
altar. In the eighteenth year of his reign, the great
pereecutor lay expiring of a most loathsome malady. A
deep and fetid ulcer preyed on the lower regions of his
body, and ate them away into a mass of living comiptiou.
It is certainly singular that the disease, vulgarly called
being " eaten of wonna," should have been the destiny
of Herod the Great, of Galerius, and of Philip II. of
Spain. Physicians were sought from all quarters ; every

t oracle was consulted in vain ; that of Apollo suggested
a cure which aggravated the virulence of the disease.
Not merely the chamber, the whole palace, of Galerius
is described as infected by the insupportable stench
which issued from hia wound; while the agonies which
he suffered might have satiated the worst vengeance of
the most unchristian enemy.

From the dying bed of Galerius issued an edict,
which, while it condescended to apologise for pjiaoto*-
the past severities against the . Christians, an, Aprhk
under the specious plea of regard for the public welfare

Q.9.

223

EDICT OF GALEEIUa.

and the unity. of the state — while it expressed coi

passion for his deluded subjects, whom the Govemnn
was unwilling to leave in the forlorn condition of bei
absolutely without a religion — admitted to the fulleati
extent the total failure of the severe measures for th«
suppression of Christianity.'' It permitted the free and
pubKc exercise of the Christian religion. Its close
still more remarkable ; it contained an earnest request-
to the Christians to intercede for the suffering Empena
in their supplications to their God. Whether this edict
was dictated by wisdom, by remorse, or by superstitioua
terror ; whether it was the act of a statesman, convinced,
by experience of the impolicy, or even the injustice, ol
his sanguinary acts; whether, in the agonies of his
excruciating disease, his conscience was harassed by the
thought of his tortured victims ; or, having vainly
solicited the assistance of his own deities, he would
desperately endeavour to propitiate the favour, or, at
least, allay the wrath, of the Christiana' God ; the whole
Koman world was witness of the public and humiliating
acknowledgment of defeat extorted from the dying
Emperor, A few days after the promulgation of the
edict, Galerius expired.

The edict was issued from Sardica, in the name of
^j,,3n, Galerius, of Licinius, and of Conatantine, It
'**'■ accorded with the sentiments of the two latter:
Maxim in II. alone, the Csesar of the East, whose peculiar
jurisdiction extended over Syria and Egypt, rendered
but an imperfect and reluctant obedience to the decree
of toleration. His jealousy was, no doubt, excited by
the omission of his name in the preamble to the edict ;
aud he seined this excuse to discountenance its promol-

I
I

H CHAP. IX. UAXIMIN n. 229

^1 gation in his provinces. Yet for a time he suppresBed
■^ Lis profound and inveterate hostility to the cominctot
Christian name. He permittedunwritten orders tiKEut.
to be issued to the municipal governors of the towiia, and
to the magistrates of the villages, to put an end to all
violent proceedings. The zeal of Sabinns, the Pnetorian
Prefect of the East, supposing the milder sentiments of
Galerius to he shared by Maximin, seems to have outrun
the intentions of the Cteaar. A circular rescript appeared
in the name of Sabinua, echoing the tone, though it did
not go quite to the length, of the imperial edict It
proclaimed that " it had been the anxious wisli of the
divinity of the most mighty Emperors to reduce the
whole empire to pay a harmonious and united worship
to the immortal gods. But their clemency had at length
taken compassion on the obstinate perversity of the
Christians, and determined on desisting from their
ineffectual attempts to force them to abandon their
hereditary faith." The magistrates were instructed t:i
communicate the contents of this letter to each other.
The governors of the provinces, supposing at once that
the letter of the Prefect contained the real sentiments
of the Emperor, with merciful haste despatched ordera
to all persons in subordinate civil or military command,
the magistrates both of the towns and the villages, who
acted upon them with unhesitating obedience."

The cessation of the persecution showed at once its
extent. The prison doors were thrown open ; the mines
rendered up their condemned labourers. Everywhere
long trains of Olu-istians were seen hastening to the
ruins of their churches and visiting the places sanctified
bj their former devotion. The pubhc roads, the streets,

Z30

DELIVERANCE OF THE CHRISTIAKS.

and mnrket-placea of the towDS were crowded witb li
[irocessions, singing psalms of thanksgiving for tiu
deliverance. Those who had maintained their fail
under these severe trials passed triumphant in conscioi
even if lowly pride, amid the flattering congratulationti'
of their brethren ; those who had failed in the hour of
affliction hastened to remiite themselves with their God,
and to obtain readmission into the flourishing and re-
united fold. The Heathens themselves were astonished,.
it is said, at this signal mark of the power of the Chris-
tians' God, who had thus unexpectedly wrought so
sudden a revolution in favour of his worshippers.*

But the cause of the Christians might appear not yet
sufficiently avenged. The East, the great scene of
persecution, was not restored to prosperity or peace. It
had neither completed nor expiated the eight years of
relentless persecution. The six months of ap-
boBitetQ parent reconciliation were occupied by the

Chrislianlty. „,,... . /

Ojesar Masimm m preparing measures ot more
subtile and profound hostility. The situation of Maximin
himself was critical and precarious. On the death of
Galerius, he had seized on the government (rf
the whole of Asia, and the forces of the two
Emperors, Licinius and Maximin, watched each other
on either side of the Bosphorus, with jealous and
dissembled hostility. Throughout the West, the Ei
perors were favourable, or at least not inimical, to
Christianity. The political dilBculties, even the vices
of Maximin, enforced the policy of securing the support
of a large and influential body ; he placed himself at
the liead of the Pagan interest in the East. A deliberataj
scheme was laid for the advancement of one party

tiei,^
illdH

to ™

Ch*p. IX. HOSTILITY OF MASIMIS, 231

the popular favour foe the depression of the ether.
Measurea were systematically taken to enfeeble the
influence of Christianity, not by the authority of Govern-
ment, but by poisoning the public mind, and infusing
into it a settled and conacientioQS animosity. False
Acts of Pilate were forged, intended to cast discredit on
tlie Divine founder of Christianity ; they were dissemi-
nated with the utmost activity. The streets of Aatioch
and other Eastern cities were placarded with the most
caliimniona statements of the origin of the Christian
faith. The instruotors of youth were directed to intro-
duce them as lessons into the schools, to make their
pupils commit them to memory ; and boys were heard
repeating, or grown persons chanting, the most scan-
dalous blasphemies against the object of Christian ado-
ration." In Damascus, the old arts of compelling or
perHuading women to oonfesa that they had been present
at the rites of the Christians, which had ended in lawless
and promiscuous licence, were renewed. The confession
of some miserable prostitutes was submitted to the Em-
peror, published by liia command, and disseminated
throughout the Eastern cities, although the Clu-istian
rites had been long celebrated in those cities irith the
utmost public! t)'.'

The second measure of Maximin was the reorganisa-
tion of the Pagan religion in all its original ii«™Hiii«-
pomp, and more than its ancient power. A Paganian.
complete hierarchy was established on the model of the
Christian episcopacy. Provincial pontiffs, men of the
highest rank, were nominated ; they were inaugurated

232 PAGANISM REORGANIZED. B

with a solemn and splendid ceremonial, and were di»T 1
tinpuished by a tunic of white. The Emperor himself J
assumed the appointmeut to the pontifical offices in the. I
iliflerent towns, which had in general rested with the ]
local authorities. Persons of rank and opulence were ]
prevailed on to accept these sacred functions, and were 1
thus committed, by personal interest and corporata i
attachment, in the decisive struggle. Sacrifices were (
performed with the utmost splendour and regularity,
and the pontiffs were invested with power to compel the
attendance of all the citizens. The Chiistians were liable
to every punishment or tortui'e, short of death. The
Pagan interest having th\is become predominant in the
greater cities, addresses were artfully suggested, and
voted by the acclaiming multitude, imploring the inter-
ference of the Emperor to expel these enemies of the
established religion from their walls. The rescripta of
the Emperor were engraved on brass, and suspended in
the public parts of the city. The example was set by
Antioch, once the head-quarters, and still, no doubt, a
stronghold of Christianity. Theotecnus, the logistes or
chamberlain of the city, took the lead. A splendid
image was erected to Jupiter Philius, and dedicated
with all the imposing pomp of mystery, perhaps of
Eastern magic* As though they would enlist that
strong spirit of mutual attachment which bound thp
Christians together, the ancient Jupiter was invested
in the most engaging and divine attribute of the God of
Christianity — he was the God of Love. Nicomedia,
the capital of the East, on the entrance of the Emperor,
presented an address to the same effect as those which,
had been already offered by Antioch, Tyre, aud other

r Eowb. li. a, 3.

IX. RENEWED PERSECUTIONS. 233

cities ; and the Emperor affected to yield to this aimul-
taneouB expression of tlie geiieral sentiment.

The first overt act of hostility was a prohibition to
the Christians to meet in their cemeteries, perscmitoas
whA"e probably their enthusiasm was wrought S^ot^-
to the utmost heiglit by the sacred thoughts '"*"■
associated with the graves of their martyrs. But the
policy of Masimiu, in general, confined itselC to vexatious
and harassing oppression, and to other punishments,
which inflicted the pain and wret^^hedneas without the
dignity of dying for the faith : the persecuted had the
sufferings, but not the glory, of martyrdom. Such, most
likely, were the general orders of Maximin, though, in
some places, the zeal of his officers may have trans-
gressed the prescribed limits, it must not be said, of
humanity. The Bishop and two inhabitants of Emesa,
and Peter the Patriarch of Alexandria, obtained the
honours of death. Lucianus, the Bishop of Antioch, was
sent to undergo a public examination at Nicomedia ; he
died in prison. The greater number of victims suffered
the less merciful punishment of mutilation or blinding.
The remonstrances of Constantine were unavailing ; the
Emperor persisted in his cruel course; and is said to
have condescended to an ingenious artiiiee to afflict the
sensitive consciences of some persons of the higher
orders who escaped less painful penalties. His banquets
were served vrith victims previously slain in sacrifice,
and his Christian guedta were thus unconsciously be-
trayed into a crime which the authority of St Paul
had not yet convinced the more scrupulous believers to
be a matter of perfect indifference,''

The Emperor, in his public rescript in answer to the

k Euub. a. 7.

234 TTRASKT OF MAXIMIN.

address from the city of Tyre, had, as it were, placed j
tbe issue of the contest on an appeal to Heaven,
»r^'?r^( The gods of Paganism were asserted to be
8u"eotui8 the benefactors of the human race; through
their influence, the soil had yielded its annual
increase ; the genial air had not been parched by fetal
droughts ; the sea had neither been agitated with tem-
pests nor swept by hurricanes; the earth, instead of
being rocked by volcanic convulsions, had been the
peaceful and fertile mother of its abundant fraits.
Their own neighbourhood spoke the manifest favour of
these benignant deities, in its rich fields waving with
harvests, its flowery and luxuriant meadows, and in
the mild and genial temperature of the air. A city M
blest by its tutelary gods, in prudence as well as in
justice, would expel those traitorous citizens whose im-
piety endangered these blesaingB, and would wisdy
purify its walls from the infection of their heaven^
despising presence.

But peace and prosperity by no means ensued upon
Keveiw. *J^s depression of the Christians. Notwith-
*■"■*"■ standing the embellishment of the Heathen
temples, the restomtion of the Polytheistic ceremonial
in more than ordinary pomp, and the nomination of
the noblest citizens to the pontifical offices, every kind
of calamity — tyranny, war, pestilence, and famine^
depopulated the Asiatic provinces. Not the least
scourge of the Pagan East was the Pagan Emperor
himself. Christian writers may have exaggerated, they
can scarcely have invented, the vices of Maximin. His
lusts violated alike the honour of noble and plebeian
Tymmyot families- The eunuchs, the purveyors for his
Mn.kdiii. passions, traversed the provinces, marked out
those who were distinguished by fatal beauty, and con-

cedfl
ren,^!

Chap. IX. WAR AND FAMINE. 235

ducted these extraordinary perquisitions with the most
insolent indignity: where milder measures would not
prevail, force was used. Nor was tyranny content with
the gratification of its own licence : noble virgins, after
having been dishonoured by the Emperor, were granted
in marriage to his slaves ; even those of the highest rank
were consigned to the embraces of a barbarian husband.
Valeria, the widow of Galerius, and the daughter of
Diocletian, was first insulted by proposals of marriage
from Maximin, whose wife was still living, and then
forced to wander through the Eastern provinces in the
humblest disguise, tiU, at length, she perished at Thes-
salonica by the still more unjustifiable sentence of
Licinius.

The war of Maximin with Armenia was wantonly
undertaken in a spirit of persecution. This war with
earliest Christian kingdom was attached, in all ^^^^^
the zeal of recent proselytism, to the new religion.
That part which acknowledged the Eoman sway was
commanded to abandon Christianity ; and the legions of
Eome were employed in forcing the reluctant kingdom
to obedience.*

But these were foreign calamities. Throughout the
dominions of Maximin the summer rains did
not fall ; a sudden famine desolated the whole
East; com rose to an unprecedented price.* Some
large villages were entirely depopulated ; many opulent
families were reduced to beggary, and persons in a
decent station sold their children as slaves. The rapa-
city of the Emperor aggravated the general misery.
The granaries of individuals were seized, and their stores

^ Euseb. ix, S.

< The statement in the text of Eu-
•ebius, af it stasda^ is utterly inere-

dible— a measure of wheat at 2^^Q
attics (drachm8>, from 70/. to 80/.

PESTILENCE.

closed up by the imperial seal. The flocks and herds
were driven away, to be offered in unavailing sacrifices
to the gods. The court of the Emperor, in the mean
time, insulted the general auffering by its excessive
luxury ; his foreign and barbarian troops lived in a kind
of free quarters, in wasteful plenty, and plundered on
all aides with perfect impuuity. The scanty
and unwholesome food produced its usual effect,
1 pestilential malady. Carbuncles broke out all over
the bodies of those who were seized with the disorder,
but particularly attacked the eyes, so that multitudea
became helplessly and incurably blind. The houses
of the wealthy, which were secure against the famine,
seemed particularly marked out by the pestilenca The
hearts of all classes were hardened by the extent of the
calamity. The most opulent, in despair of diminishing
the vast mass of misery, or of relieving the Bwarms
of beggars who filled every town and city, gave up the
fruitless endeavour. The Christians alone took a nobler
and evangelic revenge upon their suffering enemies.
They were active in allaying those miseries of which
they were the common victims. The ecclesiastical his-
torian claims no exemption for the Christians from the
general calamity, but honourably boasts that tliey alone
displayed the offices of humanity and brotherhood.
They were everywhere, tending the living, and burjnng
the dead. They distributed bread ; they visited the in-
fected houses ; they scared away the dogs which preyed,
in open day, on the bodies in the streets, and rendered
to those bodies the decent honours of burial. The myriads
who perished, and were perishing, in a state of absolute
desertion, could not but acknowledge that Christianity
was stronger than love of kindred. The fears and tha
gratitude of mankind were equally awakened in theii

.Ch*p. IX. MAXmiN CEASES TO PEHSECUTE.

237

favour: the feara which could not but conclude tliosp
calamities to be the vengeance of Hcnveit for the per-
secutions of its favoured people ; the gratitude to thoBO
who thus repaid good for evil in the midst of a liustilo
and exasperated aociety."

Before we turn our attention to the West, end foIloM
the victorious career of Ooustantine to the reoousolida*
tion of the empire in hia person, and the triumph of
Christianity through his favour, it may be more consiB-
teut with the distinct view of these proceedings to violate
in some degree the order of time, and follow to its doao
the history of the Chriatiaii persecutions in the East.

Maximin took tlie alarm, and endeavoiued, too lut«,
to retrace his steps. He issued an edict, in nuimin
which he avowed the plain principles of tjjle- [^^uiillll
ration, and ascribed his departure from that """'■
Balutaty policy to tlie importunate zeal of hia rapitAl
and of other cities, which he could not treat with dift-
respect, but which had demanded the expulsion of the
Christians from their respective tenitories. He com*
manded the suspension of all violent measures, and
recommended only mild and persuasive means to win
back these apostates to the religion of their fon^athera.
The Christians, who had once been deluded by a Bhow
of mercy, feared to reconstruct their fallen ediHcew,
or to renew their public assemblies, and awaited, io
trembling expectation, the issue of the approaching
contest with Liciuios."

The victory of Constantine over SlaxentJuii had left
him laaBta oT Borne. Constantine and LAdniia reigned
over all tlie European provinces; aud the imblu
edict tot the tderstion c^ Chiistianity, iamed id the

238 DEATH OF MAXTMIS. Bo

name of these two Emperors, announced the policy of i
the Western Empire.

After the defeat of Masimin by Licinius, his obscure '
death gave ample -scope for the credulous if not in-
ventive malice of liia enemies to ascribe to liis last J
moments every excess of vfeaknesa and cruelty, as well 3
as of suffering. He is said to have revenged his baffled I
Aj) 313 hopes of victory on the Pagan priesthood, who ]
j^^ „f had incited him to the war, by a promiscaoas
'•■"'"°- massacre of all within his power. Hia last
imperial act was the promulgation of another edict,^
still more explicitly favourable to the Christians, in
which he not merely proclaimed an unrestricted liberty '
of conscience, but restored the confiscated property of
their churches. His bodily sufferings completed the
dark catalogue of persecuting Emperors who had
periahed under the most eseniciating tormenta; his
body was slowly consumed by an internal fire."

With Maximin expired the laat hope of Paganism to
The new maintain itself by the authority of the Govem-
S^™ ment. Though Licinius was only accidentally
"'"^''°"'- connected with the Christian party, and after-
wards allied himself for a short time to the Pagim
interest, at this juncture his enemies were those of
Christianity ; and bis cruel triumph annihilated at once
the adherents of Maximin, and those of the old religion.
The new hierarchy fell at once ; the chief magistrates
of almost all the cities were executed ; for even where
they were not invested in the pontifical offices, it was
under their authority that Paganism had renewed its '
more unposing form, and sank vrith them into ihe com-' '

Chap. IX. CH0BCH OF TYRE REBUILT. 239

mon ruin. The arts by which Theotecnas of Antioch,
the chief adviser of Maximin, had imposed upon the
popnlace of that city by mysterious wonders, were de-
tected and exposed to public contempt, and the author
put to death. Tyre, which had recommended itself to
Maximin by the most violent hostility to the Christian
name, was coustrained to witness the reconstruction of
the fallen church in far more than its original j^
gi-audeur, Eusebius, afterwards the Bishop of otihodiurch
Cffisarea and the historian of the Church, pro-
nounced an inaugural discourae on its-reconstmctioii.
His description of the building ia corioua in itself, as the
model of an Eaatem church, and illustrates the power
and opulence of the Chiistian party in a city which had
taken the lead on the side of Paganism, Nor would
the Christian orator venture greatly to exa^erate the
splendour of a building which stood in the midst of, and
provoked, as it were, a comparison with, temples of high
antiquity and unquestioned magnificence.

The Christian church was bmlt on the old site ; for,
though a more convenient and imposing space might
have been found, the piety of the Christians clung with
reverence to a spot consecrated by the most holy as-
sociations; and their pride, perhaps, was gratified in
restoring to more than its former grandeur tlie edifice
which had been destroyed by Pagan malice. The whole
site was environed with a wall ; a lofty propylson,
which faced the ritdng sun, commanded the attention
of the passing Pagan, who could not but contrast the
present splendour with the recent solitude of the place;
and afforded an imposing glimpse of the magnificence
within. The intermediate space between the propylseou
and the church, was laid out in a cloister with four
colonnades, enclosed with a palisade of wood. The

240 SPLESDODR OF THB NEW EDIFICE.

centre square was ojien to the sua and air, and tw»)
fountaiDS sparkled in the midst, and reminded tins
shipper, with their emblematic purity, of the necessity
of sanctifieation. The iminitiate proceeded no farther
thau the eloit^ter, but might behold at this modest
distance the mysteries of the sanctuary. Several other
vestibules, or propylsea, intervened between the cloister
and the main building. The three gates of the church
tronted the East, of which the central was the loftiest
and most costly, " like a queen between her attendants."
It was adorned with plates of brass and richly sculptored
reliefs. Two colonnades, or aisles, ran along the main
building, above which were windows, whiuh lighted the
edi6ce; other buildings for the use of the ministers
adjoined. Unfortunately, the pompous eloquence of
Eusebius would not condescend to the vulgar details
of measurements, and dwells only in vague terms of
wonder at the spaciousness, the heaven-soaring loftiness
the splendour of the interior. The roof was of beams
from the cedars of Lebanon, the floor inlaid with "marble.
Ill the centre rose the altar, which had already obtained
the name of the place of sacrifice ; it was guarded from
the approach of the pro&ne by a trellis of the most
slender and gracefiil workmanship. Lofty seats were
prepared for the higher orders, and benches for those of
lower rank were arranged with regularity throughout
the building. Tyre, no doubt, did not stand alone in
this splendid restoration of her Christian worship ; and
Christianity, even before her final triumph under Cou^
stantine, before the restitution of her endowments, and
the munificent imperial gifts, possessed sufficient wealth
at least to commence these costly undertakings.

BOOK III.

CHAPTEB L

Ctntstantine.

The reign of Conatantine the Great forms one of the
epochs in the history of the world. It is the i^i^ofoa;-
lera of the dissolution of the Eoman Empire ; ■'"'"''"■
the commencement, or rather consolidation, of a kind oi
Eastern despotism, with a new capital, a new patriciate,
a new constitution, a new financial system, a new, thongli
as yet imperfect, jurisprudence, and, finally, a new re-
ligion. Already, in the time of Diocletian, cbuigeiDtbs
Italy had sunk into a province; Borne into ""'P'™-
one of the great cities of the empire. The declension
of her importance had been gradual, but inevitable ;
her supremacy had been shaken by that slow succession
of changes which had imperceptibly raised the relativi^
weight and dignity of other parts of the empire, and of
the empire itself, as a whole, until she ceased to be the
central point of the administration of public affairs,
liome was no longer the heart of the social iwidnUMi
system, from which emanated all the life and °'""'™
power which animated and regulated the vast and un-
wieldy body, and to which flowed in the wealth and
the homage of the obedient world. The admission of
the whole empire to the rights of Boman citizenship bj
Caracolla had dissolved tlie commanding spell which
TOL. n. B

,942

DEGRADAFION OF BOMB.

centuries of glory and conquest had attaolied to the3
majesty of the Roman name. To be a Roman >
no longer a privilege ; it gave no distioctive rights, ito'l
exemptions were either taken away, or vulgarised by f
being made common to all except the servile order. ■
The secret once betrayed that the imperial dignity I
might be conferred elsewhere than in the imperial city, -j
lowered still more the pre-enainence of Korae. From
that time, the seat of government was at the head of
the army. If the Emperor, proclaimed in Syria, in
lUyria, or in Britain, condescended, without much delay,
to visit the ancient capital, the trembling senate had
but to ratify the decree of the army, and the Roman '
people to welcome, with submissive acclamations, their j
new master,

Diocletian had consummated the degradation of Rome, j
by transferring the residence of the court to Nicomedla.
He had commenced the work of reconstructing the
empire upon a new basis. Some of his measm-es were
vigoraus, comprehensive, and tending to the strength
and consolidation of the social edifice ; but he had
introduced a principle of disimion, more than powerful
enough to counteract all the energy which he had
infused into the executive government His fatal policy
of appointing co-ordinate sovereigns, two Augusti, with
powers avowedly equal, and two Cnesars, with authority
nominally subordinate, but which, in able hands, would
not long have brooked inferiority, had nearly dismem-
bered the solid unity of the empire. Aa yet,
tropiniErtiii the influence of the Roman name was com-
manding and awful ; the provinces were
accustomed to consider themselves as parts of one poli-
tical confederacy ; the armies marched still under the
same banners, were united by discipline, and as yet b^ 9

Chap. I. UKITT OF EMPIKE PRESERVED. 243

the tmforgotten inheritance of victory from their all-
subduing ancestoi's. In all parts of the world, every
vestige of civil independence had long been effaced;
centurieB of servitude had destroyed every dangeroua
memorial of ancient dynasties or republican constitu-
tious. Hence, tburefore, the more moderate ambition
of erecting an independent kingdom never occurred to
any of the rival Emperors; or, if the separation had
been attempted, if a man of ability had endeavoured to
partition off one great province, dependent upon its owa
resourcea, defended by its own legions, or by a well-
organised force of auxiliary barbarians, the age was not
yet ripe for such a daring innovation. The whole
empire would have resented the secession of any member
from the ancient confederacy, and turned its concen-
trated force against the recreant apostate from the
majestic Unity of Imperial Rome. Yet, if this syatera
had long prevailed, the disorganising must have finally
triumphed over the associating principle : separate in-
terests would have arisen ; a gradual departure from
the uniform order of administration must have taken
place ; a national character might have developed itself
in different quarters ; and the vast and harmonious
edifice would have split asunder into dJBtinct, and insu-
lated, and at length hostile, kingdoms.

Nothing less than a sovereign whose comprehensive
mind could discern the exigencies of this critical period,
nothing less than a conqueror who rested on the strength
of successive victories over his competitoo for the
supremacy, could have reunited, and in time, under one
vigorous administration, the dissolving elements of the
empire.

Such a conqueror was Constantine ; but, reunited, the
empire imperiously demanded a complete civil reorgan-
B 2

244

HEW NOBILITT.

iaatiou. It was not the foundation of tlie new capital
which wronght the change in the state of the empire,
it was the state of the empire which required a new
capital. The ancient system of goTernment, emanating
entirely from Kome, and preserving, with sacred re-
verence, the old republican forms, had lost its awe ; the
world aeinowledged the master wherever it felt the
power. The possession of Kome added no great weight
to the caudidate for empire, while its pretenaiong em-
barrassed the ruhng sovereign.' The powerless senate,
which still expected to ratiiy the imperial decrees;
the patrician order, which bad ceased to occnpy the
posts of hononr, and danger, and distinction ; the tiir-
thulent populace, and the pnetorian soldiery, who still
presnmed (o assert their superiority over the legions
who were bravely contesting the German or the Persian
frontier ; the forms, the intrigues, the interests, the
factions of such a city, would not be permitted by an
Emperor accustomed to rule with absolute dominion in
Treves, in Milan, or in Nicomedia, to clog the free
movements of his administration. The dosao-
hition of the praetorian bands by Constantine,
on his victory over Maxentius, though necessary to the
peace, was fatal to the power, of Eome. It cut off
one of her great though dearly-purchased distinctions.
Around the Asiatic, or the Ulyrian, or the Gaulish
court, had gradually arisen a new nobility, if not hitherto
distinguished by title, yet, by service or by favour, pos-
sessing the marked and acknowledged confidence of the

accordii^ to the tame donbtFnl an*
Iliority, threatedai, after his tli^l
from Italy, to cfaange th« name of thi

Caw. I. DECADENCE OF EOMAJI RELIGION. 243

Emperor, and filling all offices of power and of dignity —
a nobility independent of patrician descent, or the
tenure of property in Italy. Ability in tlie field or in
the council, or even court intrigue, would trinnipli over
the claims of hereditary descent ; and all that remained
was to decorate with title, and organise into a new aria-
tiOcracy, those who already possessed the influence and
the authority of rant. With Emperors of provincial or
barbarous descent naturally arose a race of military
or civil servants, strangers to Eoman blood and to the
Roman name. The will of the sovereign became the
fountain of honour. New regulations of finance, and a
jurisprudence, though adhering closely to the forms and
the practice of the old institutions, new in its spirit and
in the scope of many of its provisions, embraced the
whole empire in its comprehensive sphere. It was no
longGr Rome which legislated for the world, but the
l^^slation which comprehended Rome among the cities
subject to its authority. The laws were neither issued
DOT ratified, they were only submitted to, by Rome.

The Roman religion sank with the Roman supremacy.
The new empire welcomed the new religion as siateotihB
its ally and associate in the government of the Homa
human mind. The empire lent its countenance, its
sanction, at length its power, to Christianity. Chris-
tianity infused throughout the empire a secret principle
of association, which, long after it had dissolved into
separate and conilicting masses, held together, never-
theless, the loose and crumbling confederacy, and, at
length, itself assuming the lest or abdicated sovereignty,
compressed the whole into one system under a spiritual
dominion. The Papal, after some interval of confusion
and disorganisation, succeeded the Imperial autocracj
over the European world.

COSVEHaiON OF CONSTAKTINE.

Of all historical problems, none bas been discussed ^vitb
ii«u»s Bit 8 stronger bias of opinion, of passion, and of pre-
rt!^"fora- jndice,accordiDgto the age, the nation, the creed
Buntino. Qf j^Q writer, than the conversion of Constan-
tine, and the establishment of Christianity as the religion
of the empire. Hypocrisy, policy, superstition, divine
iuspiratioQ, have been in turn aaaigued as the sole or
the pi-edominant influence which, operating on the mind
of the Emperor, decided at once the religious destiny of
the empire. But there is nothing improbable in snp-
posing that Constontine was actuated by concurrent, or
even conflicting, motives ; all of which united in en-
forcing the triumph of Christianity. There is nothing
contradictory in the combination of the motives them-
selveB, particularly if we consider them as operating
with greater strength, or with successive paroxyamB, as
it were, of influence, during the different periods in the
life of Constantine, on the soldier, the statesman, and
the man. The soldier, at a perilous crisis, might appeal,
without just notions of his nature, to the tutelary power
Bf a deity to whom a considerable part of his subjects,
and perhaps of his army, looked up with faith or with
awe. The statesman may have seen the -absolute
necessity ofTiasing his new constitution on religion ; he
may have chosen Christianity as obviously possessing
the strongest, and a still etrengthening, hold upon the
minds of his people. He might appreciate, with pro-
found political sagacity, the moral influence of Chris-
tianity, as well as its tendency to enforce peaceful, if
not passive, obedience to civil government. At a later
period, particularly if the circunastancee of his life threw
him more into connexion with the Christian priesthood,
he might gradually adopt as a religion that which had
commanded his admiration oa a political influence. Ho

Ciup. I. POSITION OF CHItiSTXjlSlTK AT THE TIME, 247

might embrace, with ardent attachment, yet, after all,
by no means with distinct apprehension, or implicit
oL>edience to all its ordinances, that faith wSiich alone
seemed to survive amid the wreck of all other religious
systems.

A rapid but comprehensive survey of the stnte of
Christianity at this momentous period will explain the
position in which it stood in relation to the civil goveru-
menf, to the general population of the empire, and to
the ancient religion ; and throw a clear and steady light
upon the manner in which it obtained its political
as well as its spiritual dominion over the Eoman
world.

The third century of Christianity had been prolific in
religious revolutions. In the East, the silent Ke^i-u nf
progress of the Gospel had been suddenly i^in.
arrested ; Christianity had been thrown back with irre-
sistible violence on the Roman territory. An ancient
religion, connected with the great political changes in
the sovereignty of the Persian kingdom, reiived in all
the vigour and enthusiasm of a new creed ; it was
received as the associate and main support of the state.
A hierarchy, numcTOUs, powerful, and opulent, with all
the union and stability of a hereditary caste, sti-ength-
ened by large landed possessions, was reinvested with
an authority almost co-ordinate with that of the
sovereign. The restoration of Zoroastrianism, as the
established and influential religion of Persia, is perhaps
the only instance of tlie vigorous revival of a Pagan
religion.'' Of the native rehgion of the Parthians,

^ The maUriala liir tba view ofthe I mm; AoqiieEil du Peiron; Zends'
reetoratiou of th« PendsD religion me Tents, 3 vola. ; the GennBQ trwiBlBtioa
chiefly daivtd from tlie follawing of Dq' Perron, by Kleuter, with Fery
Kmrcu: — Hyde. Da RiUiiOM Peraa- i valiublB Tolame* of >ppenrlii (Aa.

248 RELIGIOUS KEVOLUTIONS,

little, it' anything, is known. They were a St^-thiai
race, who overrau and formed a ruling aristocracy ovef
the remains of the older Persian, and the more modem
Grecian civilisation. The Scythian, or Tartar, or Tur-
coman tribes, who liave perpetually, from China
ward, invaded and subdued the more polished nations,
liaye never attempted to force their rude and shapeless
deities, their more vulgar Shamanism, or even the
Buddhism which in its simpler form has prevailed
among them to a great extent, on the nations OTer
which they have ruled. The ancient Magian priesthood
remained, if with diminished power, in great nnmbei^
and not without extensive possessions in the eastern
provinces of the Parthian empire. The temples raised
by the Greek euccesaors of Alexander, whether to Grecian
deities, or blended with the Tsabaism or the Nature-
worsJiip of Babylonia or Syria, continued to posgeas their
undiminished honours, with their ample endowments
and their sacerdotal colleges. Some vestiges of the dei-
fication of the kings of the line of Arsaces seem to be
discerned, but with doubtful certainty.

The earliest legendary history of Christianity assigns
Parthia as the scene of Apostolic labours ; it was the
province of St. Thomas. But in the intermediate
region, the great Babylonian province, there is the
strongest evidence that Christianity had made an early,
a rapid, and a Buccessfol progress. It was the residence,
at least for a certain period, of the Apostle St. Peta."
With what success it conducted its contest with Judaism,
it is impossible to conjecture ; for Judaism, which, after

hiiDg) ; De Guigniant's TisiuktiDo cf J to Gibbon when lie coiDposed his bril-
CiTuzen Sjmbolik ; Mali'olm'a UibIoij liant cbHpUr on thi> subject.
}f Persu ; Unrea, Ideeo, I • Cumpnn Hole to vol. i, p. 63.

SuDiB of thew HDrOB were bde Dpea 1

CaiP. I, BESTORATION OF ZOROASTRIASISM. 249

the second rebellion in the reign of Ha^lrian, main-
tained but a permissive and preearious esistence in
Palestine, flourished in the Babylonian province with
aomething of a national and independent character.
The Seech-Glutha, or Prince of the Captivity, far sur-
passed in the splendour of his court the Patriarch of
Tiberias ; and the activity of their schools of learning in
Kahardea, in Sura, aud in Pnmbeditha, is attested by
the vast compilation of the Babylonian Talmud.* Nor
does the Christianity of this region appear to have suf-
fered from the persecuting spirit of the Magian hierarchy
during the earlier conflicts for the Mesopotamian pro-
vinces between the amis of Rome and Persia. Tliough
one bishop ruled the united communities of Selencia
and Ctesiphon, the numbers of Christians in the rest of
the province were probably far from inconsiderable.

It was in the ancient dominions of Darina and of
Xerxea that the old rehgion of Zoroaster re-
assumed its power and authority. No sooner otPenfnn
had Aideschir Babhegan (the Artaxerxes of byArswchir
the Greeks) destroyed the last remains of the
foreign Parthian dynasty, and reorganised the iionofzo.
dominion of the native Persian kings, from
the borders of Charismia to the Tigris {the Persian
writers assert to the Euphrates),^ than he hastened to
environ his tlirone with the Magian hierarchy, and to
re-establiah the Bacerdotal order in all its former dignity.
But an ancient rehgion, which has sunk into obscurity,
viill not regain its full influence over the popular mind,
unless reinvested with divine authority : intercourse with
heaven must be renewed ; the sanction and ratification
of the deity must be public aud acknowledged. Wonder

260 CHAEACTKRiSTlCS OF ZOROASTHIANISM. B<xK Itl.^

and miracle ure as necessary to the reyival of an old, aa
to the estabhshment of a new, religion. In the records
of the Zoroastriau fiuth, which are preserved in the
ancient language of the Zend, may be traced many
singular provisionB which bear the mark of great anti-
quity, and show the transition from a pastoral to an
agricultural life.' The cultivation of tlie soil ; the pro*
pi^ation of fruit-trees, nowhere so luxuriant and variouB
as in the districts which probably gave birtli to the great
religious legislator of the East, Balk, and the country
of the modem Afghans, and the destruction of noxiotis
animals, are among the primary obligations enforced on
the followers of Zoroaster. A grateful people might
look back with the deepest veneration on the author of
a religious code so wisely beneficent ; the tenth of the
produce would be no disproportionate offering to the
prieBthood of a religion which had thua turned civilisa-
tion into a duty, and given a Divine sanction to the fii-st
principles of human wealth and happiness. But a new
impulse was necessary to a people which had long
passed tbia state of transition, and were only reassuming>
the possessions of their ancestors, and reconstnicting'
their famous monarchy. Zoroastrianiam, like all other
religions, had split into numerous sects ; and an autho-
ritative exposition of the Living Word of Zoroastet
could alone restore its power and its harmony to the^
re-established Magianism of the j-ealm of Ardeschir.
vitfoo ot Erdiviraph was the Magian, designated, by his
Etdifiraph. blameless innocence from his mother's womb,
to renew the intercourse with the Divinity, and to
unfold, on the authority of inapiration, the secrets oi

VISION OF EflDIVlRAPn.

2Si

heaveu and hell. Porty (according to one account, eighty
thousand) of the Magian priesthood, the Archimage,
who resided in Bactria, the Deaters and the Mobeds,'

1 assembled to witness and sanction the important
ceremony. They were successively reduced to 40,000,
to 4000, to 400, to 40, to 7 : the acknowledged merit
of Erdiyiraph gave him the pre-eminence among the
seven.* Having passed through the strictest ablutions,
and drunk a powerful opiate, he was covered with a
white linen, and laid to sleep. Watched by sei-en of
the nobles, including the king, he slept for seven days
and nights ; and, on his reawakening, the whole nation
listened with believing wonder to bis exposition of the
faith of Oromazd, which was carefully written down by
an attendant scribe, for the beneiit of posterity."

A hierarchy which suddenly regains its power, after
CGuturies of obscurity, perhaps of oppression,
will not be scrupulous as to the means of ofUBM»eiflQ
giving strength and permanence to its do-
minion. With AKleschir, the restoration of the Persian
people to their I'ank among the nations of the earth, by
the reinfusion of a national spirit, was the noble object
of ambition ; the re-estabiishment of a national rehgion,
as the strongest and most enduring bond of union, was
an essential part of hia great scheme ; but a national
religion, thus associated with the civil polity, is neces-
sarily exclusive, and impatient of the rivalry of other
creeds. Intolerance lies in the very nature of a religion

C All tIi«M numbeis, it ihoald be
riBerved, are multipleg of 40, the in-
deGuite uiunbir tbroaghout Ote Eut.
(See Bredow's DisHitatlati, uneied
totheiiewe(lilionofSyiioel]iu;Byuiit,
HIA Bonn.) The recunnU of Zoroa*-

reduBfii 1q Hven, Ibe sacrrf ramber
with the ZoroastiinD, M with the re-
ligion of the Old TeBtaoieDt,

k Hjd« (riom Feniui luthoiitiM)
De BeliE. Fart, p STB it Kqq.

252

HAGLO HIEEAKCHICAL DtTOLERAJSXE. Book Iff.'

which, dividing tlie whole world into the reidm of two
conflicting principles, raises one part of mankind into a
privileged order, as followers of the Grood principle, and
condemns the other half as the irreclaimable slaves of
the Evil One. The national worBhip is identified with'
that of Oromazd ; and the kingdom of Oromazd must be
purified from the intrusion of the followers of Ahriman.
The foreign relations, so to speak, of the Persiatt
monarchy, according to their old poetical history, are
strongly coloured by their deep-rooted religions opinions;
Their implacable enemies, the pastoral Tartar or Tureo*
man tribes, inhabit the realm of darkness, and at times
invade and desolate the kingdom of light, till soma
mighty monarch, Kaiomers, or some redoubtable herO)
Ituatan, reasserts his majesty, and revenges the losses,
of the kingdom of Oromazd. Iran and Turan are the
representatives of the two conflicting worlds df light
and darkness. In the same spirit, to expel, to pereecnt^
the followers of other religions, was to expel, to trample
on, the followers of Arhiman. This edict of ArdescJiii
closed all the temples but those of the fire-worshipper^
— only eighty thousand followers of Ahriman, including
the worshippers of foreign religions, and the less ortho-
dox believera in Zoroaatrianiam, remained to infect tha
purified region of Oromazd.' Of the loss sustained by
i>™™«!'>n Christianity during this conflict, in the pro«
ttyioPa*!. per dominions of Persia, and the number d
churches which shared the fate of tJie Partliian and

ration of tlw Pemiiin intn^irdif and

Klii;i0D, ha> nid that in thru conflict

'• ibe avDnJ uf AriitMts (escIi was die

bu likewise quoted intboritles for Uw

nsme given by llie Orlcntala to (lie

perMCation of Artuena which raliU

Polyth.™ ind philosophy of th..

Greeks) WM Basily broken," Isuaptct

Chip, I. CONNEXION OF THRONE AND HIEEARCHT. 253

■Grecian temples, there ia no record. The pereecutioua
by the followers of Zoroaster are to be traced, at a
later period, only in Armenia and in tlie Babylonian
province ; but Persia, from this time until the fiercer
persecutions of their own brethren forced the Nestorian
Christians to overleap every obstacle, presented a stem
and insuperable barrier to the pn^resa of Christianity/
It cut off all connexion with the Chriatian communities
(if communities there were) in the remoter East."

Aideschir bequeathed to hia royal descendtaits the
solemn charge of maintaining the indissoluble ctmneiion
union of the Magiau religion with the state : ^iaf™*
" Never forget that, as a long, yon are at once 'J'"^?'
the protector of religion and of your country. Consider
■ the altar and the tlirone as inseparable; they must
always sustain each other. A sovereign without religion
is a tyrant ; and a people who have none, may be deemed
the most monstrous of societies. Beligion may exist
without a state, but a state cannot exist without reli-
gion : it is by holy laws that a pohtical association can
alone be bound. You should be to your people an
example of piety and virtue, but without pride or osten-
tation."" The kings of the race of Sassan accepted
and fulfilled the sacred trust; the Magian hierarchy
encircled and supported the kingly power of Persia.

k Soiomei], indeed, ssHiis IhntGiris-
tiiuity waa Gnl idItdiIuchI into Ike
Pei-sian dominioiu at a later period,
from their mtereon™ witli Osroene
and Armenia. Bot it iji reiy impiu-
bflbJB that the active zeal of the Chns-
11.101 in the first iigea of the religion
Id not have taken advantage nf

Elamites," L e. Jews inhaljitiiig thoac
countries, are mentJoiied ns among the
CDDFerta on the dsy of Pentetsst.

- Tlie date of the earliest Chriitian

disciuted in B^tn, Das alte lodifn, i.

254 A£MESU TOE FmST CHBISTIA^ KINGDOM. I

They formed the great coand] of the state. Foreign I
religions, if tolerated, were watched with jealous se^
rity. Magianism was estabUshed at the point of t
sword in those parts of Armenia which were subjugated I
by the Persian kings. When Mesopotamia was incladed 1
within the pale of the Persian dominions, the Jews were^
at times, exposed to the eererest oppressions; the burial {
of the dead was peculiarly offensive to the usages of the I
fire-worshippers. Maui was alike rejected, and perse- |
cuted by the Christian and the Magian priesthood ; and |
the barbarous execution of the Christian bishops, who
ruled over the Babylonian sees, demanded at a later
period the interference of Constantme."

But while Persia thus fiercely repelled Christianitj
AnDoniiih* from its frontier, upon that frontier arose a
ungiim. Christian state." Armenia was the first country
which embraced Christianity as the religion of the king,
the nobles, and the people. During the early ages of
the empire, Armenia had been an object of open con-
tention, or of political intrigue, between the conflicting '
powers of Partbia and Eoma The adoption of Chris-
tianity as the religion of the state, while it united the
interests of the kingdom, by a closer bond, with the
Christian empii-e of Rome (for it anticipated the honour
of being the first Christian state by only a few years),
added, to its perilous situation on the borders of the two
empires, a new cause for the implacable hostility of '
Persia. Every successful invasion, and every subtle
negotiation to establish the Persian predominance in
Armenia, was marked by the most relentless and

" Sojomen, ii. 9, 10, Compere, on j Marlyr. Or. et Omid. Roma, 1746.
■hew parsecutien! of llie Christiana, t St. Martin, UdniOTres anr I'At- !
Uaokcr, Aohang zum Zendarttta, p. m^k, L 405, 406, be NaUs lo .'
192 H Hq., with Attaaaai, Act. I Boa, H»t. dn Empmnnv i. 76.

QUP.L AEUENIAJ, HISTOET. 255

Ban^nary persecutions, which were endured with the
combined dignity of Christian and patriotic heroism by
the afflicted people. The Vartobed, or Patriarch, waa
always the first Tietim of Persian conquest, the first
leader to raise the fallen standard of indepeudence.

The Armenian histories, written, almost without ex-
ception, by the priesthood, in order to do honour to their
native country by its early reception of Christianity,
have included the Syrian kingdom of Edessa within ita
borders, and assigned a place to the celebrated Abgar
iu the line of their kings. The personal correspondence
of Abgar with the Divine author of Christianity is, of
course, incorporated in this earJy legend. But though,
no doubt, Christianity had made considerable progress,
at the commencement of the third century, the govern-
ment of Armenia was still sternly and irreconcdeably
Pagan. Khosrov L imitated the cruel and im-
pious Pharaoh. He compelled the Christians,
for a scanty stipend, to labour on the pubh'c works.
Many obtained the glorious crown of martyrdom."

Gregory the Dlmninator was the Apostle of Armenia.
The birth of Gregory was darkly connected otpgoirthe
with the murder of the reigning king, the J""™'"""''-
almost total extirpation of the royal race, and the
subjugation of his country to B foreign yoke. He was
the son of Anah, the assassin of bis sovereign. ' The
murder of Khosrov, the valiant and powerful king
of Armenia, is attributed to the jealous ambition of
Ardescbir, the first king of Persia.' Anah, of a noble
Armenian race, was bribed, by the promise of vast

1 Fatlier Chamich, Hialory of Ar- I Hist Arm&. i. 154, a

D-.fiii*, i. 153, tisnalnMd bj AvdiU. thoritia. St. MartlD, 1

' Mowa Cborea. 64, 71 ; Cbimldi, I I'AnuAiIe, i. 303, iic

MDEDEE OF KHOSBOV.

BOOK ml

wealth and the second place in the empire, to conspire I
against the life of Khosrov. Pretending to take refuge '
in the Armeuiau dominions from the pereeeution erf J
Kin g Ardescliir, he was hoapitably received in the city 1
of Valarebapat He struck theking to the heart, and
Murder of lle<i- The Armenian soldiery, in their fury,
'^'™'''- pursued the assassin, who was drowned, during ]
hia flight, in the river Araxes. The vengeance of the i
eoldiers wreaked itself upon bis innocent family ; ' the I
infant Gregory alone was saved by a Christian axaae, [
who took refuge in Cffisarea. There the future Apostle
was baptized, and {thus runs the legend) by divine
revelation received the name of Gregory. Ardeschir
reaped all the advantage of the treachery of Anah, and
Armenia sauk into a Persian province. The conqueror
consummated the crime of his base instrument ; the
whole family of Ehosrov was put to death, except Tiri-
datea, who fled to the Eoman dominions, and one sister,
Khosrovedught, who was afterwards instrumental in the
introduction of Christianity into the kingdom. Tiridatea
served with distinction in the Roman armies of Diocletian,
and seized the favourable opportunity of reconquering
his hereditary throne. The re-establishment of Ai-menia
as a friendly power was an important event in the
Eaatcm policy of Rome; the simultaneous conversion I
of the empire and its Eastern ally to the new religion J
Btrengthened the bonds of union by a common religious J
interest.

Gregory re-entered his native country in the train j
^wate* of the victorious Tiridates, But Tiridates was I
ArmEDia. a bigotcd adherent to the ancient religion of .1
his country. This religion appears to have been a J

■ AcfflMiiinf' to £t. Martin, two children of A]

PSttSECOTION OF GREGOBY.

^1 mingled form of cornipt Zoroastrianism and Grecian,
" or rather Oriental, Nature-worship, with some rites of
Scythian origin. Their chief deity was Aramazd, the
Ormuzd of the Magian syBtem, but their temples were
crowded with statues, and their altars reeked with animal
sacrifices ; usages revolting to the purer Magianism of
Pereia.' The Babylonian impersonation of the female
principle of generation, Anaitis or Anahid, was one .of
their most celebrated divinities; and at the funeral
of their great King Artaces many persons had immo-
lated themselves, after the Scythian or Getic custom,
upon his body.

It was in the temple of Anaitis, in the province of
Efeelias, that Tiridates offered the sacrifice of thanks-
giving for his restoration to his hereditary throne. He
commanded Gregory to assist in the idolatrous worshiji.
The Ciiristian resolutely reftised, and endured, pemwntiDn
according to the Armenian history, twelve dif- ''f'^"«°'T-
ferent kinds of torture. It was disclosed to the exas-
perated monarch, that the apostate from the national
religion was son to the assassin of his father, Gregory
was plunged into a deep dungeon, where he languished
for fourteen years, supported by the faithful charity of a
Ciiristian female. At the close of the fourteen years, a
pestilence, attributed by the Christian party to the
Divine vengeance, wasted the kingdom of Armenia. Tin-
virgin sister of Tiridates, Khosrovedught (the daughter
of Khoarov) had embraced the faith of the Gospel By
Divine revelation (thus speaks the piety of the priestly
historians), she advised the immediate release of Gregory.
"What Heaven had commanded. Heaven bad approved
by wonders. The Kin g himself, afflicted by the malady.

PEHSECOTION BY CHHISTIANS.

looxHt^

was healed by the Clu'istian missionary. The pestilence
convenimor ceased. The king, the nobles, the people, almoBt
oa KiQB. simultaneously submitted to baptism, Armenia
became at once a Christian kingdom, Gregory took
the highest rank, as Archbishop of the kingdom. Prieata
were invited from Greece and Syria; four hundi-ed
bishops were consecrated ; churches and rebgious houses
arose in every quarter ; the Christian festivals and days
of reh'gio'JS observance were established by lav^.

But the severe truth of history must make the melan-
choly acknowledgement that the Gospel did not finally
triumph without a fierce and sanguinary strife. The
province of Dara, tlie sacred region of the Armenians,
crowded with their national temples, made a stern and
PoBooiiion determined resistance. The prieste fought for
Qruuuii. their altars with desperate courage, and it was
only with the sword that churches could be planted in
that irreclaimable district." In the war waged by
Mazimin against Tiridates, in which the ultimate aim
of the Roman Emperor, according to Eusebius, was the
suppression of Christianity, he may have been invited
and encouraged by the rebellious Paganism of the sub-
jects of Tiridates,

Towards the close of the third century, while there-
lision of the East was undergoing these signal
revolutions, and the antagonistic creeds of
Magianism and Christianity were growing up inttipoweiDi^

» la the vaj curiooi «rtiMt from

V/bo liei here tn ble gnne,

ind'^tbhtaiiimmcn.

ZuDob, Oxae is sn account of this dill
war, Th« fblloiring Inscriptlao eom-

And thb bMtiB we tougbl for Hie Godl
or KisiBB ami tit CbrUit.

See ZalKhrlft fir die Kunde

Tbe [ado or ttae innla wu Ai^in, ILe

»jq.

ciii<fo[(beF[l«ttK»d.

MAXICHEISM. 259

fill and hostile systems, and assuming an important in-
flaencG on the political affairs of Asia ; while the East and
the West thus began that strife of centuries which subse-
quently continued id a more fierce and implacable form in
the conflict between Christianity and Mobammedaniam;
a bold and ambitiouB adventurer in the career
of religious change" attempted to unite the
conflicting elements ; to reconcile the hostile genius of
the East and of the West ; to fuse together, in one
comprehensive scheme, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and
apparently the Buddhism of India. It is singular to
trace the doctrines of the most opposite systems and of
remote regions assembled together and harmonised in
the vast Eclecticism of Mani/ From his native
Persia he derived hiaDualian, hia antagonistic Kmraesofiiui
worlds of light and darkness; and from Ma-
gianiam, likewise, hia contempt of outward temple aud
splendid ceremonial. From Gnosticism, or rather from
universal Orientaliam, he drew the insepamble admixture
of physical and moral notions, the eternal hostility

■ Besides the origiiul auUioritice, 1

Te consalled, tbc Mani and his doo

jWb, BeaUBohre, Hist, dn Manich^

DC ; D'Herbeial, Hrt. JIani ; l.ardaer,

I CWibilityof Gospel History; Mosheim,

I D> Keb. Christ, sate Const. MagDun ;

[ JUMer,Hi8t.daGnoBticime,ii.35l. I

anlj seoa Baar's able Manichaische

I BdigiDiu Syatnu, after this chapter

1 had antiuipated, though

not followed out so closely, the reU-

(jonship to Buddhisin, mach of nhich,

however, is evidentlj the common

pnuDdwork of all OrientnliEin.

r Augusiine, id Taiioiu paasagei,
at fully in what it given »t m
(rem the book of the FaaD<h

tion, De Nat. Botii, p. 515. Compm'e
Beuusobre, Tol. if. 386, who seems to
CDDsider it an ahstrart from some forgeJ
or apiiriooa woik. Probably mnch of
Mini's system was allegorical, bnt how
mach, his disciples probably did oott
snrl his adferearles would Dot, kDow.
See also the moet curious passage about
the Mnniiihetm raetempsychosit, in tlie
statemeat of Tyrbo, in the Dispulatio
Archelai et ManeUs, apud Routb, Re-
liqoiffi Sacra, vol. if.

The moEt siDgular fact is that these
obatloate idolatera were uf Indian
descent, and were distinguisked if

:iliC SOUBCES OF MANI*8 DOCTHISES. BooKUin

between Mind and Matter, the rejection of Judaism, ajid
the identification of the God of the Old Testament witli
the Evil Spirit, the distinction between Jesus and the
Christ, with the Docetism, or the unreal death of the
incorporeal Christ From Cabalism, through Gnosticiun,
came the primal man, the Adam Csedmon of that system,
and (if it be a genuine part of this system) the assump-
tion of beautiful human forms, those of gracefiil boys
and attractive virgins, by the powers of hght, aud their
union with the male and female spirits of darkness,
i'rom India, he took the Emanation theory {all light
was a part of the Deity, and in one sense the soul of
the world), tlie metempsychosis, the triple division of
human souls {the one the pure, which reascended at
once, and was reunited to the primal lifjht ; the second
the semi-pure, which, having passed through a purgatorial
pivceas, I'eturued to earth, to pass through a second
ordeal of life ; the third, of obstinate and irreclaimable
evil) : from India, perhaps, came his Homophoms, as
the Greeks called it, his Atlas, who supported the earth
upon his shoulders, and his Splenditeneus, the circum-
ambient air. From Chaldea, he borrowed the poww of
astral influences; and he approximated to the solar
worship of expiring Paganism : Christ, the Mediator,
like tlie Mithra of his countryman, bad his dwelling in
the sun.'

From his native country Mani derived the simple
diet of fruits and herbs ; from the Buddhism of India,
his respect for animal life, which was to be slain neither
tor food nor for sacrifice ; ' from all the anti-materialist.

• D'Hert«1at,Toc"Klsnl." I ibr food, Sa In thoo ulso ttwn

■ Ibid. AnguEtine s\ya Umt ihfj whs a uvrtaiD portion of life, wbich,
Fpt when tba; plucked legebiblm I uccardiog to Uani, was a put of tlu

Chap. I. THEIE RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.

261

sects or religions, the abhorrence of every sensual indul-
gence, even the bath as well as the banquet ; the pro*
scription, or, at least, the disparagement of marriage.
And the whole of these foreign and extraneous tenets,
his creative imagination blended with his own form of
Christianity ; for, so completely are they mingled, that
it is difJScult to decide whether Christianity or Magianism
formed the groundwork of Mani's system. From Chris-
tianity he derived not, perhaps, a strictly Nicene, but
more than an Arian, Trinity. His own system was the
completion of the imperfect revelation of the Grospel.
He was a man invested with a divine mission, — the
Paraclete (for Mani appears to have distinguished between
the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit), who was to consum-
mate the great work auspiciously commenced, yet un-
fulfilled by the mission of Jesus.^ Mani had twelve
apostles. His Ertang, or Gospel, was intended to super-
sede the four Cliristian Evangelists, whose works, though
valuable, he averred had been interpolated with many
Jewish fables. The Acts, Mani altogether rejected, as
announcing the descent of the Paraclete on the Apostles.'^
On the writings of St. Paul he pronounced a more

Deity. « Dicitis enim dolorem sen-
tire frnctum, cum de arb<H« carpitar,
sentire dnm condditor, cum teritor,
cum coquitur, cuiA manditur. Cnjus,
porro dementiae est, pios se rideri relle,
quod ab animaliom interfectioDe se
teroperent, cum omnes snas escas eas-
dem animas habere dicunt, quibus ut
putant, viventibus, tanta yulnera et
manibus et dentibus ingeraut.'* An-
gustin. contra Faust, lib. tL p. 205,
206. This is pure Buddhism.

b Lardner, following Beausobre, oon-
liders the aooount of Hani's predeces-

sors, Scythianus and Terebinthus, or
Buddha, idle fictions. The Tirgin birth
assigned to Buddha, which appears to
harmonise with the great Indian My-
thos of the origin of Buddhism, might
warrant a conjecture that this is an
Oriental tiudition of the Indian ongin
of some of Mani s doctrines, dictated by
Greek ignorance. I now find this con-
jecture followed out and illustrated
with copious learning by Banr.

* Lardner (y. 11. 183) suggests
other reasons for the rqjection of the
ActA.

2B2

HANI'S PAIXTIKGS.

favOTmihle Bentence, Bat his Ertang, it 13 said,
not merely the work of a prophet, but of a painter ;
among his variouB accompliBhiuentE, Matii excelled id
Hiipunt- that art. It was richly iUustrated by pictures,
'"**" which commanded the wonder of the age;
while his followera, in devout admiration, studied the
tenets of their master ia the splendid images, as well as
in the sublime language, of the Marvellous Book. If
tliia be true, since the speculative character of Mani's
chief tenets, their theogonical, if it may be so said,
extramundane character, lay beyond the proper province
of the painter (the imitation of existing beings, and that
idealism which, though elevating its objects to an unreal
dignity or beauty, is nevertheless faithful to the truth
of nature), this imagery, with which his book was iUu-
minated, was probably a rich system of Oriental sym-
bolism, which may have been transmuted by the blind
zeal of hia followers, or the misapprehension of his
adversaries, into some of his more fanciful tenets. The
reh'gion of Persia was fertile in these emblematic figures,
if not their native source ; and in the gorgeous illiimi-
nated manuscripts of the East, often full of allegorical'
devices, we may discover, perhaps, the antitypes of the
Ertang of Mani."

Mani (I blend together and harmonise as far as pos-
sible the conflicting accounts of the Greeks and Asiatics)

* It appears, I thiDk, from Augus-
tine, that all the splendid images of the
toepti'ed king croirned with flowers,
the tiplsDdit«aetia and the Homophnrui,
wereBllegDricalljiRlerpreted: "Si mm
aunt cni^mata raliouis, phaDtaamnta
(tint cogitationlj, aut vecordia furaris.
SiveroaHUgtnalipaaedicuntnr." ConliB
Fsuat. IV, p. 277. The eitraol from

the " amatory aong " (Contra Fa
IT, 5], with tie twel™ ages (the g
cycle of 12.000 yenrsl singing and
casting flowers upou the eTeiiastlD^
sceptred king; Uie twclta gods (the
signs of the zodiac), and the iuaU of
angels, is eridentlf tlie poetry, not Um
theologj, of the syileul.

t Chat.L

LIFE OF MASL

^K Chai

H was of Persian birth,' of the sacred race of the Magi. He

H wore the dresa of a. Persian of distinction, the

H lofty Babylonian sandale, the mantle of azure

H blue, the parti-coloured trousers, and he bore the ebony

■ staff in his hand/ He was a proficient in the learning

■ of his age and countrj', a mathematician, and had made
I aglohe; hQwasdeeplyskilled,a9appearafromhiBsyBtem,
W in the theogonical mysteries of the East, and so well

versed in the Christian Scriptures that he was said to
have been, and indeed he may at one time have been,
a Christian priest, in the province of Ahoriaz that bor-
dered on Babylonia.^ He began to propagate his
doctrines during the reign of Shah-poor, but the son of
Ardeshir would endure no invasion upon tho established

tMagianism.'' Mani fled from the wrath of his sovereign
into Turkesthau ; from thence he is said to have
Tisited Indiaj and even China.' In Turkeathan, he
withdrew himself from the society of men, like Moham-
med in the cave of Hira,'' into a grotto, through which
flowed a fountain of water, and in which provision for a
year had been secretly stored. His followers believed

* Hi> Inrth i> nnigried bj the Chnm-
ide of Etiessa to tbe yrar -239. Beun-

' Beauu>bre»whoisipc]tned tosdmit
tiie g*niiinenf« of this description, in
the Acti of Archelana, hae tsken piins
to hhoif that ttiere vna nnthing differ-
ing from the ordinsry Peraian dress.
Vol, i. p. 97. 4c

I In the Acts of Archelnus. he <s

onsiJers the stoiy of Ihff

Invented points of similitude between
liieir prophet and " the inipous Sad-
ducee," Hi he is cnlled in the Koran.

Itood noGreeli.bti

puled in Sjriai;.

AKTAGONISTIC DUALISM.

okIbII

that he had ascended into heaven, to eommime with the
Deity. At the end of the year, he reappeared, and dis-
played Ms Ertang, embeniebed with its paintings, as
the Divine revelation.™

Id the theory of Mani, the one Supreme, who hovered
in inacressible and uninflnential distance over the vfhole
of the CrDOKtic systems, the Bruhm of the Indians, and
the more vague and abstract Zeraane Akerene of Zoro-
astriauism, liolds no place. The groundwork of his
system is an original and irreconcileable Dualism."
The two antagonistic worlds of light and darkness, of
spirit and matter, existed from eternity, separate,
unmingled, nn approaching, ignorant of each other's
existenca" The kingdom of h'ght was held by God
the Father, who "rejoiced in his own proper eternity,
and comprehended in himself wisdom and vitality;"
his most glorious kingdom was founded in a light and
blessed region, which could not be moved nor shaken.
On one side of his most illustrious and holy territory
was the land of darkness, of vast depth and extent.

■ BeaiiBObre (i, 191, 192) wonld
find the Ca£caT at which, BCEordiDg to
the eitant,bnt much contested, iqwrt,
the meminable conference between
Arcbelaus nud Mani was held, at Ca^h-
gir in Turkeftluui. But, Independent
of liie impi-obnttility nf a Christian
hishq) settled in Turkathan, tlie whole
bisUiry iE full of diffiuulCiee, and nothing
B le» likely than that the report of
euch a conference should reach tlie
Greek or Sjriaa ChristianB tirough
the habile leiritorj of Ferniu

" Epiphauiua girffi these words ta

iyaflii' Hal jranii', tdIj Traam igpat
ivaifria, &1S KetT& fiftSiy iviKOiifovy
Birtpov Btniptfit Epiphan. HsmL
livi. U.

" Hie (juidem in eieu-dio fuerunt
duffi substantiffi a wse diretsK. Et
Inminis quidem inperiam teoebat
DeliB Pater, in suft sanct^ atirpe per-
petauB, in yirtute m^nificus, natuift
ipe& varus, ntemltiUB propria semper
eisultans, contineus apud se sapientiun
et Kiuus vitalea . . . Ito aulem fnn-
data suntejiiBdemsplendidiseunaregna

twen(r-l

1 hutan

a boul») on the MfSteries:
9fb! kbI Cxti, ^i kill rrici'

nulla unquun aut 01011
isint. Apud Augui
inich.c 13,0.16.

THE AKCHETYPAL ADAM.

266

inhabited by fiery bodies, and pestiferous n
Civil dissensions agitated the world of darkness ; the
defeated faction fled to the heights or to the estreme
verge of their world." They beheld with amazement,
and with envy, the beautiful and peaceful regions of
light.' They determined to invade the delightful realm ;
and the prima! man, the archetypal Adam, was formed
to defend the borders against this irrnption of the hostile
powera. He was armed with hia five elements, opposed
to those which formed the realm of darkoesa. The
primal man waa in dauger of discomfiture in the long
and fearful strife, had not Oromazd, the great power of
tlie world of light, sent the living spirit to hia assistance.'
The powers of darkness retreated ; but they bore away
some particles of the divine light, and tlie extrication of
t^eee particles (portions of the Deity, according to the
subtile materitdiBni of the system) is the object of the
long and almost interminable strife of the two principles.
Thns, part of the Divinity was interfused through the
whole of matter ; light waa, throughout all visible ex-
istence, commingled with darkness.' Mankind was the

r The realm of dirkiiess was dh
into five distinct circles, which
remind hs of Dante's hefi. 1. Of
inliDH« daAnaB, perpetually esa

lis. tliat of fienenndbi
with tfaeir prion aod llieir
. 4. A fitrj but oomiptible
n of destroying fire),

Ep. E.und.TOieL
■ !.14,n,

August!

1 The world of Jarkueu, loeoriSug
tn nne statenient, cleft the world of
light like a wed)^ (AuguElin. oonCr.
Faust, iv. 2); fuxnidiDg to mutiiar
(Titus Boalnmsis, i. 7), it occupied
the MUthem quarter of the Dniveree.
Tht>:, as Baur observo. ia Zoroutriui-
iam. Bundehnch, port ill. p. 62.

' Theodoret, Hsret. Fab. i. 26.

• Epiphan. Hseret. liTl. T8. Tltna
BoitreiiiiB, AuguBbin. de Hicret. c 46.

■ The eeloitial powen, during tb<
long V ' '

EVE AN INFEEIOK CREATION.

creation or the offspring of the great principle of dark-!
ness, after this stolen and ethereal light had become
incorporated with hia dark and material being. Man
was formed in the image of the primal Adam ; hig
nature waa threefold, or perhaps dualistic; the body,
tlie concupiscent or sensual soul (which may have been
the influence of the body on the soul), and the pure,
celestial, and intellectual spirit. Eve was of inferior,
of darker, and more material origin ; for the creating
Arclion, or spirit of evil, had expended all the light, or
soul, upon man. Her beauty was the fatal tree of
Paradise, for which Adam was content to iall. It waa
by this union that the sensual or concupiscent sonl
triumphed over the pure and divine spirit ;" and it was
by marriage, by sexual union, that the darkening race
was propagated. The intermediate, the visible world,
which became the habitation of man, waa the creation
of the principle of good, by bis spirit. This primal
principle subsisted in trinal unity (whether from eternity
might, perhaps, have been as fiercely agitated in the
Manichean as in the Christian schools) ; the Christ, the
first efflux of the God of Light, would have been defined
by the Manichean aa in the Nicene Creed, as Light of
Light; he was self-Bubsistent, endowed with all the
perfect attributes of the Deity, and his dwelling was is

me ^

Bltemntfilj tlie mist beautiful fomu i
uf the mUECuliDe and feminine sei, sod
mingled with llie powers of darkness,
who L^kewitie became baja and Tirgim ;
and from their conjunction proceeded
the still commingtin; world. This ii
probably an all^^ry, perhaps a paint-
ing. Thei'Q is anolJier fanciful poetic
.mage of coiisidei'nble beauty, and, pos-
sibly, of Che Hsme hll^ric cbamcter.
The pun dameDtoij spirits aatnvi up-

wnrda in "their ships nf light," b
which thef ornginally sailed tbrou^
the Etainlcse dement; those which

down to earth ; these of a colder sud

^CU H

OFFICE OF THE SPIRIT. 267

the film/ He was the Mithra of the Persian sj'Stem ;
and the Manichean doctrine was Zoroasti'ianism under
Christian appellations.'' There is an evident difference
between the Jesua and the Christoa throughout the
sj'stem ; the Jesus Patibilia seema to be the imprisoned
and suffering light.

The Spirit, which made up the triple being of the
primal principle of good, was. an all-pervading Eether,
the source of life and being ; which, continually stimu-
lating the disseminated jiarticles of light, was the ani-
mating principle of the worlds. He was the creator of
the intermediate world, the scene of strife, in which the
powers of Ught and darkness contested the dominion
over man ; the one assisting the triumph of the particle
of light which formed the intellectual spirit, the other
emhniting and darkening the imprisoned light with the
corruption and sensual pollutions of matter. But the
powers of darkness obtained the mastery, and man was
rapidly degenerating into the baser destiny ; the Homo-
phoms, the Atlas on whose shoulders the earth rests,
began to tremble and totter under his increasing burden.'

ApoBtoluE norit, Christum dicens ws
Dei virtuMm et Del laplentiani, rir.
tutem quidem ejui in sole habitare
credimuE, npientiam lao in Inna:
netnon et ^liritBa Ssncli, qui est ma-
jestoi lerlia, aSris huuo oi

a eedem ^tetour u direiwriu

terrain quoque condpieittem, pgnere
pntibilero Jcanm, qui est vita et aim

' BomcpbDrua and his ally, the
SpltinditedcDi
taining the earth in its equilibTlun], ia
ODE of the inoet incon^moaB and ie^bt
pula of tha Msoich ean sj'atem

26S

THE CHEI3T — THE CELESTIAL BODIES. Book n

Then the Christ descended from his dwelling in tlie san;
aaKiinied a form apparently human ; the Jews, incited
by the Prince of Darkness, crucified hia phantom form ;
but He left beliind his Gospel, which dimly and imper-
fectly taught what was now revealed in all its full efful-
gern^e by Mani the Persian.

The celestial bodies, which had been formed by i
living spirit of the purer element, were the wit
and co-operatore in the great strife,' To the sun, the
dwelling of the Christ, were drawn up the purified soula,
in which the principle of light had prevailed, and passed
onward for ablution in the pure water, which forms the
moon ; and then, after fifteen days, returned to the
source of light in the sun. Tlie spirits of evil, on the
creation of the visible world, lest they shoald fly away,
and bear off into irrecoverable darkness the light which
was still floating aboat, had been seized by the liyiag
spirit, and bound to the stars. Hence the malignant
influences of the constellations; hence all the terrifio
and destructive fnry of the elements. While the soft
and refreshing and fertilising showers are the distillation

Is the origin of these imngss the

the sun of the ffood fire, the moon ol

nolioii of sapportere of the earth which

the good water. •' In a word, not to

.resocommoBintheKsit? Areanj

be too minute, the Craitor formed tllB

of A^ fable, older Aeu the inliodBc-

sua anil moon ont of those parta of IM

diiiD flbte HDder another fbm? oriB

purity, TheYisiWeerinNjriMhealeiw

it the Greak Atlas? 1 «ra ineliaed to

(for now we do not (peak of the wi-

look tfl India for the oiigiD.

|»eme he«ven) and the rest of the

BeauHbre'i obJKtion, tbnt >udi a

plancU were fbimed of th»e parts of

light wh^ch n^ bnt little comipMd

With mailer. The rest be left In our

matiw of ■ globe, is of no inconaiJer-

world, which are no olher than thoM

able wei^t, if it h. not mere poetiy.

part> of light which hid ■uO'erad matt

• LardDer bus well eiprwsed the

by the contagion of matJ«r." Lard-

ner'i. Worlu, 4to el, ii. 193,

the cdwtial bodira, which w«™ inada.

rHAP. T. PUaOATOKlAL METEMPSYCHOSIS. 269

of the celestial spirit, the thunders are the roarings, the
liglitiiiog the flashing wrath, the humcaDe the furious
breath, the torrent and destmctive rains the sweat, of
the DEemon of darkness. This wrath is peculiarly
excited l>y the extrication of the passive Jeaus, who was
said to have been begotten upon the all-conceiving Earth,
from his power, hy the pure Spirit. The passive Jesus
is an emblem, in one sense, it would seem, or type of
mankind ; more properly, in another, of the imprisoned
deity or light. For gradually the souls of men were
drawn upwards to the purifying sun ; they passed through
the twelve signs of the zodiac to the moon, whose
waxing and waning was the reception and transmission
of light to the sun, and from the sun to the Fountain
of Light, Those wliich were less pure passed again
through different bodies, gradually became defsecated,
during this long metempsychosis ; and there only re-
mained a few obstinately and inveterately embrued in
darkness, whom the final consummation of the visible
world would leave in the irreclaimable society of the
evil powers. At that eonsiunmation, the Homophoms
would shake off his load ; the world would be dissolved
in fire ; '' the powers of darkness cast back for all eternity
to their primaeval slate ; the condemned souls would be
kneaded up for ever iu impenetrable matter, while the
purified souls, in martial hosts, would surround the
frontier of the region of light, and for ever prohibit any
new irruption from the antagonistic world of darkness.

The worship of the Manicheans was simple : they
built no altar, they raised no temple, they had no
images, they had no imposing ceremonial. Pure and
simple prayer was their only form of adoration ; " they

WORSHIP OF THE MANICHEAM3.

did not celebrate the birth of Ciirist, for of his birth
they denied the reality; their Paschal feast, as they
equally disbelieved the reality of Christ's passion, though
kept holy, had little of the Christian form. Prayers
addressed to the sun, or at least with their faces directed
to that tabernacle in which Christ dwelt — hymns to thai
great principle of light, exhortations to subdue tha
dark and sensual element within, and the study of the
marrellous Book of Mani — constituted their devotion.
They observed the Lord's day ; they administered bap-
tism, probably with oil ; for they seem (though this point
is obscure) to have rejected water-baptism ; they cele-
brated the Eucharist ; bat as they abstained altogether
from wine, they probably used pure water or water
mingled with raisins." Their manners were austere, and
ascetic ; they tolerated, but hardly tolerated, marriage^
and that only among the inferior orders :' the theatre,
the banquet, even the bath, were severely proscribed.
Their diet was of fruits and herbs ; they shrank with
abhorrence from animal food ; and, with Buddhist nicety,
would tremble at the guilt of having extinguished the
principle of life, the spark, as it were, of celestial li^t,
in the meanest creature. This involved them in the
strangest absurdities and contradictions, which are
pressed against them by their antagonists with unrelenfe.

rthfl

«y ^B

They bitterly taunled the Catholica
with their Pagiiniim, their iBCrifi«n
' sir agapiG, their idols, Iheir martpi,
^r Gentile hoIidHp and ritH. lb,
■■ August, contra Faust. Dispnt. i,

■ St. Augustine accuses thrm of
brenking the Fillh Conunaadineiit.
~ ~ trinftdcRiotiiacftdidicieti

inlmiix* depntare parealc* tuns, quod

CKA7. 1. EEJECTION OF MANI. 271 ^M

ing logic' They admitted penitence for sin, and laid H

the fault of their delinquencies on the overpowering ^H

influence of matter.* ^M

Mani Buffered the fate of all who attempt to reconcile ^M

conflicting parties without power to enforce harmony ^M

between them. He waa disclaimed and rejected with ^M

Chriitiana among the Catholic!. See

qnotations in Lardner, iL 156.

mmpedes impwuerint." Adv. Faust.

' St. Augustine's TrealJse de Mor.

lib. IT. p. 27B. "Opiuonlur ct pnc-

Manichsnr. is full of theae ejtreor-

dicant diaholum ttoiese nlque juniisse

dinary chaises. lu the Confeasions

maiculamttfeniinam," Idem, lib.iii.

(iii. 10), be soys that tlie fig wept

p. aai. "DiEplirefwBseite et mid-

when it was plucked, und the pBreDt

tiplioaminl,' ne Dei restri mnlU-

tree pouted forth tears of tnillt ; " that

j.licentureresalul«,"&B. Adir.SMun-

particles of the true and Supreme God

dum, c. 21.

weie imprisoned in an apple, and could

'ATtxtiriai yi^ur Kal i^poSiffiwy

nut be set iree but by the toach of one

of the elect. If eaten, therefore, by

Sivaius imnitr^ rp flAjj Knri tV

ont not i ISuikhfia, it wu a dodl;

T>,i7iK>vsS,iii>,xlir. AleisDd. Lycop.

sin ; and hence they are charged with

c. 4.

making it a sin to give any thing

They aaerMd, indeed, that Iheir

which haii life to a poor mau not a

doctrinm went no farther in tJiis nupect

Manichean They showed more

Ihan those of the Catholic ChriBtiana.

Fanslus, 30. c, i. Their oppoaition to

than to human bemga." They ab-

horred husbandry, it is said, u con-

causes of the enmitj of the Persian

tinually wounding life, even in cleatiiig

king, " Rej rero Herearum, cum vi-

a field of thorns; "^o much more were

ili«t tarn Catholicos et Episcopos,

they friead< of gourd) than of men."

quam ManichcoB Manells seetarios, a

fromSt.Angnstiae; at least he admita

Christiaooe vera idem (dictum manavlL

that, aa iar m hi> knowledge ai a

Quum igilur Christiani ad regem con-

hearer, be can charge them with no

fligissent, Juseit iUe discrimcn quale

immorality. Contr. Fortunal, in init.

inlei' ut]osque eseet, aibi eipotii."

1b other parts of his writings, esped ally

■ Apnd Auemao. fiibllulh. Orient.

in the tract De Morib. Manicbceor., he

■ vii. S20.

ia more unl'avourable. But see the

^M There were, however, verv diflerent

remarkable passage. Contra Fausl. t. i..

■ rule^ of diet -ud of mxcneri for the

in which the Unnichi'au contrasts his

H elect and the auditors, much re«m-

worts with the faitA of the oiihului

H bUng those of (he nwiika and other

ChristiKu

272 D£ATH OF MANL Book IU

every mark of indigiiation and abhorrence by both. On
his return from exile,^ indeed, he was received with
respect and favour by the reigning sovereign, Hormouz,
the son of Shahpoor, who bestowed upon him a castle
named Arabion. In this point alone the Greek and
Oriental accounts coincide. It was from his own castle
that Mani attempted to propagate his doctrines among
the Christians in the province of Babylonia. The fame
of Marcellus, a noble Christian soldier, for his charitable
acts in the redemption of hundreds of captives, desig-
nated him as a convert who might be of invaluable
service to the cause of Manicheism. According to the
Christian account, Mani experienced a signal discom-
fiture in his conference with Archelaus, bishop of Cas-
car.* But his dispute with the Magian Hierarchy had a
Death of i^ore fearful termination. It was an artifice of
^**°^ the new king Baharam to tempt the dangerous
teacher from his castle. He was seized, flayed alive,
and his skin, stuffed with straw, placed over the gate of
the city of Shahpoor.

But wild as may appesir the doctrines of Mani, they
expired not with tiieir author. The anniversary of his
death was hallowed by his mourning disciples.'^ The
sect was organized upon the Christian model : he left

^ Aooording to Malcolm, he did not
return till the reign of Baharam.

hardlj hare distracted the East and
West with his doctrines. It is not

^ Some of the objections of Beanso- i improbablj an inu^nary dialogue in
bre to this conference appear insn)>er- the form, though oertainlj not in the

able. Allow a city named Cascar;
can we credit the choice of Greek, even
Heathen, Thetoriciana and grammarians

style, of Plato. See the best edition
of it, in Rooth*s Reliquise Sacrse.
k Augnsttn. oontr. Epist Manicfaei.

as assessors in such a city and in such J c. 9. The day of Hani's death was

a contest ? Archelaus, it must indeed
be confeswd, plays the sophist ; and if
Mani had been no more powerful as a
nsaioner, or as a speaker, he would

kept holy by his followers, because he
rsaliy died ; the crucifixion neglected,
becaose Christ had but stemmgiy ex*
pirsd on tho cross.

FKOPAGATIOK OP MANICHEISM.

273

. lji™«tiuli

hia twelve apoatlea, Lis seventy-two bishops," hig prieat-
hood. Hia distinction between the Elect" or the Per-
fect, and the Hearers or Catechumens, offered an esact
inu^e of the orthodox Christian communitieB ; and the
latter were permitted to many, to eat animal food, and
to cultivate the earth." In the East and in the
West the doctrines spread with the utmost o
rapidity ; and the deep impression which they
made upon the mind of man may be eatimated by
Manicheiam having become, almost throughout Asia and
Europe, a by-word of religious animosity. In the
Mohammedan world the tenets of the Sadducean, the
impious Mani, are branded as the worst and most awful
impiety. In the West the progress of the believers in
this most dangerous of Hereaiarcbs was so succeaaful
that the followers of Mani were condemned to the flames
or to the mines, and the property of those who intro-
duced the "execrable usages and foolish laws of the
Peraiana " into the peaceful empire of Rome, confiscated
to the imperial treasury. One of the edicts of Dio-
cletian was aimed at their suppression.'' 8t. Augustine

" AuguBtiD. de Hsres. c 46.

quorum nihil feciunt qui vocuitut

Electi. Auguilin. Epist. uuinii.

TcgeUbla uud (or food were purified.

r See the edict in Koutli, iv. p.

that is, the divine prindple of Jife and

B85. Some donbl has been thrown

on its aulhenlititj. It is quenioneii

inipure, bj p^ing throngh ILe bodies

bj S. BfBDBgs and by Uninn-, thoT.gh

ofthaKlKt "PrabeatalimailaelKtia

admitted by Beausobte. I cannot

mil, at dinna ilk aufaaUiitiB in earam

think the ignorance which it betrays

™tre poigsta, impeta^t e>. veni™.

of the " true prindplea of the Mflni-

quorum Iradilnr abUtione purgnnda.''

chBBs," the argument adduced by

Augustin. de Hmns, c. 46. It wu >

Lanlner. of the leiirt weight. Dio-

merit in tlie beiireis la make thru

ofleringi. Comfare Confe«. i>. 1.

aiijuaiated with the " true principles

* Auditorta, qui nppeliuitm' spnd

COS, et oniibua vcKuutar, at ngrcw

nriunUet « roloerlnt, uiore. balMot,

VOL. II.

274

PROPAGATIOX OF MANICHEISM.

himfielf^ with difficulty escaped the trammels of tbeit
creed, to become their moet able ant^oniBt; and xtt
flTery century of Christiaiiity, Manicheiam, when its reai
nature was as much unknown as the Copemican systeis,
was a proverb of reproach against all sectaries who
departed from the unity of the Church.

The extent of its success may be calculated by the
implacable hostihty of all other religions to the doc
trines of Maai : the causes of that success are more
difficult to conjectore. Maoicheism would rally under
its banner the scAttersd followers of the Gnostic sects:
but Gnosticism waa never, it would seem, popular ;
while idanicheism seems to have had the power of ex-
citing a fanatic attachtnent to its tenets in the lower
orders. The severe asceticism of their manners may
have produced some effect ; but in this respect they
could not greatly have outdone mooogtic CliriBtianity;
and the distinct and definite impersonations of their
creed, always acceptable to a rude and imaginative
class, were encountered by formidable rivals in the
diemonology and the more complicated form of worship
which was rapidly growing up among the Catholics.'

1 Then ii BmHthiiig rer; benatiful

cunqua psrM poatit intelllgi Dnub

FrtBtremo illi in vob ssvitat, qui

xt (be ame time aoUung can ehow

DUnquBID tali more decepti .iBt, quitli

more doirl; the etroog hold whidi

vo. deoeplo. videnf Omtr, Efto.

Kwiichai, t a. Bui tha spirit of

tiUl W"rld. " rii ID TOS MTiuil, qui

neniDiit cum qao libore m-am in-

Tmiatur, el quam difficile cavfintur

(met wliicii flppean to me to give Uu

•iToras. Illi ID V09 Eteviant qai

tkirest view of the real eooUoToa^, u

oewtuqt qusin ranim A ardanm sit

the BiBpuCatioointniFortunstuni,

camaliii phADlamuta pic Tnentb surt-

□itale inperare Illi ia voe

deixin«l uoder ValentiulsD ud VaUos.

The haUBCs in wluch thej held th«i

TRnTMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.

■ out

I In the Eastern division of the Homan Empire, Chris-
tianity had obtained a signal victory. It had Tunrnph nt
subdued by patient endnrance the violent lios- '*f'"'°™'J-
tiiity of GaleriiB ; it had equally defied the insidious
policy of Maximia ; it hod twice engaged in a content
with the civil government, and twice come forth in
triumph. The edict of toleration had been extorted
from the dying Galerius; and the Pagan Hierarchy,
and more splendid Pagan ceremonial, with which Masi-
min attempted to raise up a rival power, fell to the
ground on his defeat by Licinius, which closely followed
that of Maxentius by Coustantine. The Christian com-
munities had publicly reassembled ; the churcheB were
rising in statelier form in all the cities ; the bishops had
reassumed their authority over their scattered but un-
diminit^hed ilocks. Though, in the one case, indignant
animosity and the deBire of vindicating the severity of
their measures against a sect dangerous for its numbers
as well as its principles, in the other the glowing zeal of
the martyr may be suspected of some exaggeration, yet
when a public imperial edict, and the declarations of
the Christians themselves, assert the numerical pre-
dominance of the Clu'istian party, it is im- Numbmiof
possible to doubt that their numbers, as well iinn.^
as their activity, were imposing and formidable. In
a rescript of Maximin, the Emperor states tliat it bad
been forced on the observation of hia august fathers,

(Cwl. ThcodM. ivi. 31. Bj Thcodo-
thnj were il«liirHl itiBmioue,
and inoipiible of inheriliog by Uw,
ivi. 17. The condrrauntion of th«
MsniuhHina in Romf, bj Pope L« I.,
thtGrant (TliB Munk^lnuu in Sidlj^
U. EpiEt iv, d)| thdr revinl

in die MicMlf Ages, nod Ibrar vxtenKvE
disseminition, gt least w to their lead-
ing principle ; Uie undjring otetinBey
of thdr l«net« — la one of the dhk;
curious diapters in Christinn hislor]'.
S«c Ulln ChiJAianitf, i. ITl, iv.
91, &0.

PROPAGATION OF CHEISTIANITY Boos HI

Diocletian cmd Maximian, that almost all mankind had
abandoned the worship of their aneeatora, and united
themaelves to the Christian sect ; ' and Lucianus, a pres-
byter of Antiocb, who suffered martyrdom under Maxi-
' " " t speech that the greater part of
the world bad rendered its allegiance to Christianity';
entire cities, and even the rude inhabitant* of country
diBtricts.' These statements refer more particularly to

the East; and in the East various reasons
Ss'TmS' "01^1'J ^^^ ^ the supposition that the Chria-
gwiiwu* tians bore a larger proportion to the rest of
ofian»mD. the population than in the other parts of the

empire, except perhaps in Africa. The East
was the native country of the new religion ; the sub-
stratum of Judaism, on which it rested, was broader;
and Judaism had extended its own conquests much

liquiffi Sacrce, jii. S93. Gibbon bas
sttemptfd to Ibmi a calculation of tlie
relative numbers of the ChriitiBOi (nc
ch. XV. yd. a. p. 393, with 1117 aote) ;
he is, perhaps, uiclined to ondBrmte
the pioportion which they bore to the
Heathens. Yet, noCwithstauding the
quolHtione abovp, and the high aatho-
ritj of Ponon and of Routh, I "
Teoture to doubt their being tha
majoiily, eicept, pcssiblf, in ■ kw
Eastern cities. In fact, in a popijb-

pouU have been nearly
M. Beugnot agnea Tery

much with Gibbon;

coucHire, with r^ard to the West, ja

clearif right, though 1 shall allege

presently tome :

rapid progresa 0I

5HiP. I. IS THE EAST, 277

farther by proselytism, and had thus prepared the way
for Christianity. In Egypt and in tlie Asiatic provinces
all the early modifications of Christian opinions, the
Gnostic sects of all descriptions, had arisen ; showing, as
it were, by their fertility the exuberance of religious
life and the congeniality of the soil to their prolific
vegetation. The constitution of society was, in some
respects, more favourable than in Italy to the develop-
ment of the new religion. But it may be questioned
whether the Western provinces did not at last offer the
moat open field for its free and undisputed course. In
the East, the civilisation was Greek, or, in the remoter
regions, Asiatic. The Romans assumed the sovereignty,
and the highest offices of the government were long held
by men of Italian birth. Some of the richer patricians
possessed extensive estates in the different provinces,
but below this the native population retained its own
habits and usages. Unless in the mercantile towns,
which were crowded with foreign settlers irom all quar-
ters, who brought their manners, their customs, and
their deities, the whole society was Greek, Syrian, or
Egyptian. Above all, there was a native religion ; and
however this loose confederacy of religious republics, of
independent colleges or fraternities of the local or the
national priesthoods, might only be held together by
the bond of common hostility to the new faith, yet
everywhere this religion was ancient, estabh'shed, con-
formed to the habits of the people, endeared by local
vanity, atrengtliened by its connexion with municipal
privileges, recognised by the homage and sanctioned
by the worship of the civil authorities. The Roman
prefect, or pro-consul, considered every form of Pagan-
ism as sufficiently identified with that of Rome to
demand his respect and support : everj'where he found

278

PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY Book HL

deities with tlie same namee or attributes as those of the
imperiul city ; and everywhere, therefore, there was
an alliaoce, seemingly close and intimate, between the
local religion and the civil government.

In the Western provinces, Gaul, Spain, and Britain,
„ .„ but more particularly in Gaul, the constitution

OfttacWcU. „ . '^ ■,.„ . _

01 society was very dinerent. it was Komaii,
formed by the infitix of colonists from different quarters,
and the gradual adoption of Boman manners by the
natives. It bad grown up on the wane of Paganism.
There was no old, or estabbahed, or national religion.
The ancient Druidism had been proscribed as a dark
and inhuman superstition, or had gradually worn away
before the pn^ess of Roman civilisation. Out of Italy,
the goda of Italy were, to a certain degree, strangers ;
the Romans, as a nation, built do temples in their con>
quered provinces : the muiiiflcGnoe of an individual,
sometimes, perhaps, of the reigning Ctesar, after haring
laid down the military road, built the aqueduct, or
encircled the vast arena of the amphitlieatre, might rtuee
a fane to his own tutelary divinity." Of the foreign
settlors, each brought Ms worship; each set up hit
gods ; vestiges of every kind of religion, Greek, Asiatic,
Mithraic, have been discovered in Gaul, but none was
dominant or exclusive. This state of society would
require or welcome, or at all events offer less resistance
to the propagation of a new faith. After it had once
passed the Alps," Christianity made rapid progress ;
and the father of Conatantine may have been guided nc

hi. pBufgyiic on

or Vi^nne; the other «u at Anton.

on. ijfotfmplMof

Eum™. Pm..^. Hd., with the note ot

(he most beflatifal

Cellarin..

' S*riQS toni alpa religJow Dti

liuve b«n at Ljon.

™«pta ? Sulpit Sera. H. E. UT>. it

fl*AP. I. IN THE TTEST. 279

less by policy than bnmanity, in his reluctant and mer-
cifal execution of the persecuting edicts of Diocletian
and Gslerius.

Such was the position of Christianity when Constan-
tine commenced his struggle for universal empire. In
the Eaat, though rejected by the ancient lival of Eome,
the kingdom of Persia, it was acknowledged as the
leligioB of the state by a neighbouring nation. In the
Boman proTiuces, it was emerging victorious from a
period of the darkest trial ; and though still threatened
by the hostility of Masimin, that hostility was con-
rtrained to wear an artful disguise, and, when it ventured
to assume a more open form, was obliged to listen, at
least with feigned respect, to the remonstrances of the
Tictorions Constantine. In the North, at least in that
part from which Constantine derived his main strength,
it was respected and openly favoured by the Government.
Another striking circumstance might influence the least
■aperstitious mind, and is stated by tlie ecclesiastical
historian uot to have been without effect on- Constantine
himself. Of all the Emperors who bad been invested
with the purple, either as Augusti or Cfesars, during the
persecution of the Christians, his father alone, the pro-
tector of Christianity, had gone down to an honoured
and peaceful grave.^ Diocletiioi, indeed, still lived,

r Eiueb. Tit. Coast. L 21 ; Socnt. £>i ovElv irarra dI irept Au>k\iiti-

Keoles, Hist. i. 11. The language of BfJc. itpl Tuii iM.i,vuv Sioiit Sia-

Uw EcdF^uUDd HirinrHD Socistes is iicl^imi, ^vpurtir rt in i oStiiii it<i-

remarkable. GoDstantine, he fiava, waa rijpj KovOTdyriai, aironTpa^iii rii

ttftlila^ng lie liberntion of Uiu em- 'E^Mvur Spijiiie.'ai, •llaifuJi'/ffTe-

pre Tram i1« tyranta : ical &s ^r poy Thy $i&v tiiyaytr. It waa in

tr Tii\iiiiirrji fipni-rlSt, trtriu tIvs this mood of mind that he saw tin

ttir tTSnovpay Tpii riir ful^v viaioD af Uh emu, Socr. EccL Hia

aoAfffcic, cstI nSr U t\d/iSartv, 1. S.

PEESKCUTOKS OF CHKISTlAJflTT.

but in what, no doubt, appeared to moat of his former
FBdofise subjects, an inglorious retirement. However
S^^l'i? the philosophy of the abdicated Emperor might
""'■ teach him to show the vegetables of his garden,

as worthy of as much interest to a mind of real dignity
as the distinctions of worldly honour ; however he may
have been solicited by a falling and desperate faction
to resume the purple, his abdication was no doubt, in
general, attributed to causes less dignified than the con-
tempt of earthly grandeur. Conscious derangement of
mind (a malady inseparably connected, according to the
religious notions of Jew, Pagan, probably of Christian
during that age, with the divine displeasure), or remorse
of conscience, was reported to embitter the calm decline
of Diocletian's life. Instead of an object of envy, no
doubt, in the general sentiment of mankind, he was
thought to merit only aversion or contempt.' Maj^inuan
(Herculius), the colleague of Diocletian, after resuming
the purple, engaging in base intrigues, or open warfare,
against his son Maxentius, and afterwards against his
protector Constantine, had anticipated the Beutenee of
the executioner. Severua had been made prisoner, and
forced to open his own veins. Galerius, the chief author
of the persecution, had experienced the most miserable
fate; he had wasted away with a slow and agonising
and loathsome disease. Maximin alone remained, here-
after to perish in mberable obscurity. Nor should it be
forgotten that the great persecutor of the Christians
had been the jealous tyrant of Constantiue's youth.

ioui hon undying are | oDiy Pope who ever dial in b etata of
s. I lenKmber Uut M. derungemiut (BoDitkce VIIJ.?). I
CrdtioBBU Joly uimowhcra uwrta that donbt both bis hiitorica] tacO, bat tht
,t XIV. (GuiEmalli) wu Oh | umUm is rarwkabk.

CtaAP. I. BELIGION OF MAXENTIUS. 281

Constantine had preserved his liberty, perhaps liia life,
only by the boldness and rapidity of hie flight from the
court of Galeriua.*

Under all these eircumstances, Constantine was ad-
vancing against Borne. The battle of Verona ^„^
had decided the fate of the empire : the vast ^J^""'
forces of Maxentiua had melted away before """""'>■
the sovereign of Gaul ; but Rome, the capital, was still
held with the obatioacy of despair by the voluptuous
tyrant Masentius, Constantiiie appeared on the banks
(rf the Tiber, thongh invested with the Homan purple,
yet a foreign conqueror. Many of his troops
were Barbarians, Kelts, Germans, Britons ; yet,
in all probability, there were many of the Gaulish
Christians in his aimy. Masentius threw himself upon
the gods, as well as upon the people of Kome ; he
attempted with desperate earneatnesa to rally the energy
of Boman valour under the awfulnesa of the Roman
religion.

During the early part of bis reign, Masentius, intent
upon his pleasures, had treated the religious Religion ^t
divisions of Borne with careless indifference, *•"«!">»
or had endeavoured to conciliate the Christian party by
conniving at their security. His deification of Galeriua
had been, as it were, an advance to the side of Paganism.
The rebellion of Africa, which he revenged by the de-
vastation of Carthage, was likely to bring him into

■ la hia Mter to Sapor, King of riiutjAr t/Aoi KaratiKaMrt!; Srs

PertiB, Constantine lihnHlf icknow- irSf T^ /»t' Ixciyavi it^fii^iui

ledEes the influencB of thew molii-a yirm, rii imlmi- m/i-popi^ ivr'

on )iis mind ; Si' iraXAol riy Tple (\>ou iro(mi!tl7/»aTi)!. trapiTuvt

0giffiXeuffdyTwv, /uaiiiiStvi TAtLrats Toir rii Zixoia ^ij^ovat TlitirBa^

6wax»ivTts, iirtxtipv""' ipfiiaif Apud TheodoivU Ecc. Hbt. J. c. 25.

S82

BELIGION OF MAXENTIUS.

hostUe contact with the Dumerous Christians of that
province. In Home itaelf an event had occurred which,
however darkly described, was connected with the an-
tagonistic religious parties in the capital. A fire had
broken out in the temple of the Fortune of Eome, The
tutelary deity of the Roman greatness — an awful omen
in this dark period of decline and dissolution! — was in
danger. A soldier — it is difficult to ascribe such temerity
to any but a Christian fanatic— nttered some words of
insult against the revered, and it might be alienated,
goddess. The indignant populace rushed upon the
traitor to the majesty of Rome, and summoned the
pnetorian c<Jiorts to wieak their vengeance on all who
could be supposed to shoro in the sentiments of the
apostate soldier. Afaxentius is accused by one Christian
and one Pagan historian of having instigated the
tamnlt; by one Pagan he ta said to have osed lua
Dtmost exertions to allay its fiiry. Both statements
may be true ; though at first he may have given fre«
scope to the massacre, at a later period he may have
taken alarm, and attempted to restore the peace c^ the
city.'' Of the direct hostility d Maxentius to Christi-
anity, the evidence is dubious and obscure. A Roman
matron preferred the glory, or the crime, of suicide,
rather than submit to bis lustful embraces. But it was
the beauty, no doubt, not the religion of Sophronia,

• Tbe sileDcc of Envbius ui to tlie
Christianitj of the soldier, nuiy bt
thaugfat u initiperabl* objectim te
thii ritw. Bat in the Gnt pins, tin
Euteni Udwp wu but impeiActly
infbmud on the «&in of Rome, nod
Bufbt hesitate, if awan of the Gb^
to implivmt* Ihs ChrialiaD natiie with
that wbioh was so long one of tbi

most aerioua and eSectiva dwrgM
against the Ulh, its trHcfaeroui boa-
tility to Uh greatiKsa of Rome. TV
words of tbe Pagan Zoahnua am Wf
atroof : — h^dafniiia fiiHtt* nHi
Toii BtUw rrpaTurTAr tu i^t. nt

tbtiStiar imKBirto! iwt-ftMf.
Zos, Hut. U. 13.

Cb^. I. Hia PAGANISM. 283

which excited the passiona of Maxentius, whose iicen-
tiousness comprehended almost all the noble fatniliea of
Bome in ita insulting range." The Papal history, not
improbably resting on more ancient authority, repregents
Jtaxentius aa degrading the Pope Marcellus to the
humble function of a groom. The predecessor of the
Gregoriea and Innocents swept the Imperial stable.*'

The darkening and more earnest Paganism of Maxen-
tius is more clearly disclosed by the circiim- HuPnean-
Btances of bis later history. He had ever ""^
listened with trembling deference to the expounders of
signs and omens. He had suspended his expedition
against Carthage, because the signs were not propitious,'
Before the battle of Verona, he commanded the 8ybil-
line boobs to be consulted. •' The enemy of the Romans
wil] perish," answered the prudent and ambiguous oracle ;
but who could be the enewiy of Home but the foreign
Constantine, descending from his imperial residence at
Treves, with troops levied in the barbarous provinces,
and of whom the gods of Home, though not yet de-
claredly hostile to their cause, might entertain a jealous
suspicion ?

On the advance of Constantine, Maxentius redoubled
his religious activity. He paid hia adoration at the
altars of all the gods ; he consulted aU the diviners of
future events.' He had shut himself in his palace ; the
adverse signs made him take refuge in a private house.*
Darker rumours were propagated in the East: he is
reported to have attempted to read the secrets of futurity

* Eonb.'Tit. Conit. i, 33, 3i. I ' Buieb. Vit. Const. L 21 ; ipniki

^ Anubuiuii, Vit. Mucell. ; PU- of hia KnniT^i'avF nol ytiiriHii'
la. Vil. Ponlificum in MjTwUo. (ury/anloi.

" Zoemui, a. 11. I ■ Znioias, ii. U.

284 EELIGIOH OF CONSTANTINE. Booi. £11

in the entrails of pregnant women ; •> to have sought an
alliance with the infernal deities, and endeavoured by
magical formulariea to avert the impending danger.
However the more enhghtened Pagans might disclaim
the weak, licentious, and sanguinary Maxentius, as the
representative either of the Boman majesty or the
Roman religion, in the popular mind, probably, an inti-
niat« connexion unit«d the cause of the Italian sovereign
with the fortunes and the gods of Home. It is possible
that Constantine might attempt to array against this
imposing barrier of ancient superstition the power of
the new and triumphant faith : he might appeal, as it
were, to the God of the Christiana against ^e gods of
the capital. His small, though \-ictorious, army might
derive courage in their attack on the fate-hallowed city,
from whose neighbourhood Galerius had so recently
returned in discomfiture, from a vague notion that they
were imder the protection of a tutelar deity, of whose
nature they were hut imperfectly informed, and whose
worshippers constituted no insignificant part of their
barbarian army.

Up to this period all that we know of Constantine's
Rcu^j-flcf religion would imply that he was outwardly,
0>msunud«. ^jj^j gyg^ zealously, P^an. In a public ora-
tion his panegyrist extols the roagnificenc'e of his offer-
ings to the gods. His victorious presence was not merely
expected to restore more than their former splendour to
the Gaulish cities, ruined by barbaric incuraions, but
sumptuous temples were to arise at his bidding, to pro-
pitiate the deities, particularly Apollo, his tutelary God.'

toaur. ad H tempU fldaitar, prad-
pueqae ApoJla nost«, c
tibus Hqiiii peijurin puninntur, quo
ta niirinip iqiortel tuiiBM.

VISION Of CONSTANTIKE.

285

The medals struck for these victories are covered with
the symbolB of Paganism. Euaebius himself admits that
Conatantine was at this time in doubt which religion he
should embrace, and, after his vision, required to be
instructed in the doctrines of Chriatianity.^

The scene in which the memorable vision of Constan-
tine ia laid varies widely in the different accounts.
Several places in Gaul lay claim to the honour of this
momentous event in Chriatian history. If we assume
the most probable period for such an occmrence, what-
ever explanation we adopt of the vision itaelf, it would
be at this awful crisis in the destiny of Constantine and
of the world, before the walls of Kome ; an instant when,
if we could persuade ourselves that the Almighty Euler,
Ml gMcA a manner, interposed to proclaim the fall of
Paganism and the establishment of Christianity, it would
hare been a public and & solenm occasion, wortby of the
Divine interference. Nowhere, on the other hand, was
the high-wrought imagination of Constantine so likely
to be seized with religions awe, and to transform some
extraordinary appearance in the heavens into the sign
of the prevailing Deity of Christ ; nowhere, lastly, would
poUcy more imperiously require some strong religious
impulse to counterbalance the hostUe terrors of Paganism,
embattled against him.

EasebiuB,™ the Bishop of Ceeaarea, asserts that Con-
stantine himself made, and confirmed by an oath, the
extraordinary statement, which was received with im-

Jovi JoDOniqui
nibmisit, quim arcs tna,
Testigia urbaa M UmpU
Eumrnii Vtntgjt. dxL

' 'ErKHi JJTS iwdiov tiai Bil
faiTpa+iireo. Bi^iir. ICuKb, V

2SS VISION OF CONSTANTISE. Book IlL

pUcit veneration during many agea of Christianity, but
vuion of which tlie severer judgement of modem histo-
**™""" rical inquiry has called in question, has investi-
gated with the most searching accuracy, and almost
universally destroyed its authority with rational men ; yet,
it must be admittpd, found no satisfactory explanation of
its origin." While Constantine was meditating in grave

■ Tin bIIcdm, not only of sll con-
t«npanry hiatorj {the kgei»l of Arto-
mios, skeiHionod eveo by Tillnoont,
iloa not deserre the nariB), but of
Euicbiiu hiiDKlf, in hii Ecclenutiod
Bbtorjr, giTM a most dongerou* iid-
Tantikge to (hofie wbo ii]Log«ther reject
the itory. But on whom u tha Id-
TNitioii of Ois story to be fulhintl ?
On Eus*LiH? who, •llhough bii con-
•deiB!* might not le delicolelj soru-
pulom on the wibjcd of pious fnLi<!,
ta chiu^ with nD raon Ihan the
■DppreHion of trath, not villi tlie
direct iorentlon of &]achood. Or, on
Conatantine himself? Could it be

Kith h
Chriitij

* dfliUiata a

oilj? Or«i

of Uw

a hit a

in hii liter Aajn* deceived by n
iDEiplicahte illtuiiuii?

Tba ant ucunus of HeiDichm,
hk sditiuu of Eutcbius, contaiDs i
fiilbsE, uid, 00 the whole, th« m
tempeialt ud Judicioiig discussion

»olu«:t,H

iag, yrt «o faieiplicable, to Ibe hiito-
rial inqiiier. Then are (hrae Itad-
ii^ IhHui in, mriousl]' modilied by
Uwir dlAei-ent partlHU*: 1. A real
mincle. 2. A natural phcnonMUWi,
e imngioiitica of tha

prewnlal t
EmpBior.

on the part of the Emperor, or of
Eunblua. The 6nb hu few partiBia
in the present day. "Ut euim mlr>-

gentili aTocatnm esse, nemo fecile
hue Ktale silhoc credeU" Ueinichoi,
p. 0-22. Indepenileot of alt other
obJectioDB, the tnonil difficulty in the
leit is to tne nndusiTe. The thin)
hai it* paitisans, but uppean to tag
10 be abeolulely incraiible. But the
general consent of the morv learned
and dispauionate writers aeenu In
taTuur of the Hcond, which waa fln^
1 hcUe^-e, Bu^Hled by F, Albert
Fnbrioius. In this roucar Schroftdc.
the Geimsn Chun* hiilorian. M«uidcr.
M^itiso, Heinichen, and, in ahort, all
modem writei'a who have any daliR
to hiitorical ctiticism.

The g!Hit difficulty whii* nieum-
htn 'Jm theory which rHolTM it lata
wliir hnlo or some natural pfaant^
lenon is the legend i, nSrif wUtf,
'hich no optical illudcu can well (ex-
plain, if it b« taken lil««Ily. The
only rational theory ii to «uppnee
thnt this Ka.'' the inference drawn by
the miBd of Constanline, and (mbodic^
in these woida; which, from beisg
inicribed oa the Lnbni-um, or on tlw
arms or any other publia monument,
as eommemonilire of the sTsnt, gm-
duolly grew into an integral put J

Ch\p. I. VISION OF CONSTANTINE. 287

earneatneas the claims of the rival religioioa, — on ona
hand the awfcl fate of those wlio had persecuted Chris-
tiaiiity, oil the other, the necessity of some divine assists
ance to counteract the magical incantations of his enemy,
—he addressed his prayers to the One great Supreme.
On a sudden, a short time after noon, appeared a bright
cross in the heavens, just above the sun, with this in-
Bcription, " By this, conquer." Awe seized himself and
the whole army, who were witnesses of the wonderful
phsenomenon. But of the signification of the vision
Conatantine was altogether ignorant. Sleep fell upon
Us harassed mind, and during his sleep Christ himself
appeared, and enjoined him to make a banner in the
shape of that celestial sign, under which his arms woidd
be for ever crowued with victory.

Constantine immediately commanded the famous La-
bflrum to be made, — the Labanim which for a long time
was borne at the head of the Imperial armies, and vene-
tated as a aacred relic at Constantinople. The shaft of
this celebrated standard was cased with gold ; above the
transverse beam, which formed the cross, was wrought
in a golden crown the monogi'am, or rather the device
of two letters, which signified the name of Christ. And
80 for the first time the meek and peaceful Jesua became
a God of battle, and the cross, the holy sign of Christian
redemption, a banner of bloody strife.

The iBtsr KnJ '
the whole imy v

PnjdcDL In Symmi

Euseb. Vit, Const, i. 21

S. Zd«i9iis, ii. 13. M

CiHiitiintiiu, f. 41, Mqq.

MILITAET CHRISTIiKITY.

BooKin

TliiB irreooncileable incougniity betwoen the aymbo!
of universal peace and the horrors of war, in my judge-
ment, is conclusive against the miraculous or super-
natural character of the transaction," Yet the admission
of Christianity, not merely as a controlling power, and
the most effective auxiliary of civil government (an
office not unbecoming its divine origin), but as the ani-
mating principle of barbarous warfare, argues at once
the commanding influence which it had obtained over
the human mind, as well as its degeneracy from its pure
and spiritual origin. The unimpeached and nnques-
tioned authority of this miracle during so many centuries,
shows how completely, in the association which took
place between Barbarism aud Christianity, the former
maintained its predominance. This was the first advance
to the military Christianity of the Middle Ages, a modi-
fieation of the pure religion of the Gospel, if directlv
opposed to its genuine priuciples, still apparently indis-
■ pensable to the social progress of men ; through which
the Homan Empire and the barbarous nations, which
were blended together in the vast European and
Christian system, must necessarily have passed, before
they could arrive at a higher civilisation and a purer
Christianity.

• 1 wai agx«abty BUrprised bi Sad
that Umbeim concniml in these t
meats, for whidi f will readily to-
coantfT the Eharge of Quakertdm.

" Hsixine oiatia serraturi geDeria

redocet.

)U auctflr maHalibui est,
a iguoicere Tult. , . .
as Teteram Chriitianori

narmtloDlbiis da ctatii inie miisoulii
a'^'ius delvideDdla In ipum mnjeslatem

Of!, et caoctiBBitoi
Don hostes, aed noo ii.soidelKl]>in
iujurii amus." De Reb.anteCi
Whea the Empresa Helena, araoDg the
other treaaures of the tomb of Christ,
found the naila which laateoed him tc
the cross, ConaUotJne turned tbem
Into a helmet sad bita for hia war-
horse. Socrates, i. 17. True or
febalcnui, the story is chflracteristi:
of the CirMiaa seDlimenl then pre-

CBiT. r. COHDUCT OF CONSIAKTINE. 289

. The fate of Rome and of Paganism was decided iii
the battle of the Milvian Bridge ; the eventual result
was the establishment of the Christian empire. But to
CoDstautine himself, if at this time Christianity had
obtained any hold upon his mind, it was now the
Christianity of the warrior, aa subsequently it was that
of the statesman. It was the military commander who
availed himBelf of the assistance of any tutelar divinity
who might insure success to bis daring enterprise.

Christianity, in its higher sense, appeared neither in
the acts nor in the decrees of the victorious
Constantine after the defeat of Maxentius. ccaauuiuw
Though his general conduct was tempered lurfvtr
with a wise clemency, yet the execution of his
enemies and the barbarous death of the infant son of
JUaxeutius, still showed the same relentless disposition
which had exposed the barbarian chieftains, whom he
bad takeu in his successful campaign beyond the Kliine,
in the arena at Treves." The Emperor still maintained
the same proud superiority over tLe conflicting religions
of the empire, which afterwards appeared at the founda-
tion of tlie new metropolis. Even in the Labarum, if tbe
initiated eyes of the Christian soldiery could discern the
sacred symbol of Christ indistinctly glittering above the
cross, there appeared, either embossed on the beam
below, or embroidered on the square purple banner
which depended from it, the bust of the Emperor and
^ those of his family, to whom the heathen part of his
army might pay their homage of veneration. Constan-
tine, though he does not appe-ar to have ascended to

' Odc oT these barbaniua anU wai I perlidj)i crat npbt militin n«c fcroda
fdccted b7 th« jKoegjriial orator u seyaHali, ad jxaua gpn.'tjiculD dali,
■topic of the higbot praise. "Paberu, ssrieiites bestins maltitudlue iu& tiiti-
qui in nuDiu veuarunt et quomm nee j garusU" l^umeoii Pnnegr, c, >u.
VOL. 71. U

EDICT FROa MILAH.

«lfl^*

the Capitol, to pay his homage and to offer Bacrifice* to
Jnpiter the best and greatest, and the other tutelary
deities of Rome (in general the first act of a Tictorions
emperor), yet did not decline to attend the sacred games,'
Among the acts of the conqueror in Rome, was the re-
storation of the Pagan templea; among his impenal
titles he did not decline that of the Pontifex Maximum'
The province of Africa, in return for the bloody head of
their oppressor Maxentius, was permitted to found a
college of prieste in honour of the Flavian family.
The first public edict of Constantine in favour of
Christianity is lost ; that issued at Milan in the
csiuuniine joint names of Constantino and Licinius, is
"^ ' the great charter of the liberties of Cliristiauity.'
But it is an edict of full and unlimited toleration, and
no more. It recognises Christianity as one of the legal
forms by which the Divinity may be worahipped," It

1 Eu«b. Vit. Cooit, i. 51. Le

WIS that a)uiv«3l I«nii for the Sa-

Bmu, Htatoin da Bu Empirs, 1. ii.

preme Deity, adtnitted by the Pngan

aa well OS the Chriitian. What Zosi-

' Nm quiJquam aliud homiiiM,

mu. called t1 9.^^] etiam alib «li-

doruai, qiiam le ipsum spectare potu-

iimilitar apattmn, et liberam, pro

aruut. Inccrt. Hantg. «. lii.

quiet* lenicorii noiti'i raw oonL'essani,

■ ZoHmns, W. 36.

ut ia colendu quod qui*que delsgeiit.

> The alict, or rather Uie copy,

babeat liberwn litcultalem, quia (no-

wt br Licinius to the Pref«t of

lummi detrahi] honori ncquc cuiquain

SithfniB in LactantiuB, De Mart. Fen.

m >iviii.

I win transcribe, ho«CTe.', the oU

■ - D«r«iofMi!ai.,*.D.313. "Hko

nervationa of Ketlner oa this point :

H n Chriatiimia et omaibas liberam po-

"Mulli merito olaervftniiit, aiiimuDi

illud orteoden (bc. decretmo Uedio-

lenK) ab sntiqua religione mininn

■ 4U»que fgki«*t, qnod quid™ rff-

■ finittti in tedc oeleiti iioblE stque

hoc deaetum valere. ut veram Coa-

W amaibui qui tub pntntati! DDstra snot

W wiutitiiti, pl«aa K propiiia po«it

Mon solus quippr illiu. Rintor fuit.

k -"'"•—

«d Licinius qnoqac— Huic a.iMm—

«nAP. 1. EARLIER lAWS OF CONSTANTINE. 201

'performa an act of justice in restoring all the public
buildings and the property which had been confiscated
iby the persecuting edicts of former emperors. Where
,tho churches or their sites remained in the possession of
tiie imperial treasury, they were restored without any
compensation; where they had been alienated, the
■grants were resumed ; where they had been purchased,
the possessors were offered an indemnity for their en-
forced and immediate surrender, from the state. The
prefects were to see the restitution carried into execu
tion without delay and without chicanery. But the
same absolute freedom of worship was secured to all
other religions ; and this- proud and equitable indiffer-
ence is to secure the favour of the divinity to the reign-
ing emperors. The whole tc«ie of this edict ia that of
imperial clemency, which condescends to take under its
protection an oppressed and injured class of subjects,
rather than that of an awe-struck proselyte, esteeming
Christianity the one true rehgion, and already deter-
mined to enthrone it aa the dominant and establishetl
iaith of the empire.

The earlier laws of CJonstantine, though in their effects
■&YourabIe to Christianity, claimed some de- Etrinriaws
fcrence, as it were, to the ancient religion in v>"-
the ambiguity of their language, and the cautious terms
in which they interfered with the liberty of Paganism,
-The rescript oommandiu^ tlie celebration of tlie Chris-

'ua i» (Chrl>tkDl>) DOn BiDcerui oat

retilaremontemDoDpotuiaset. Kestner,

a«iiie csUrit diitpJicen Tuluit nib-

IKsp. de commul. quam, ConrtanC M.

dilb, qui Hnliqumn nliguinnn pro-

auit. udelu Eublit Chiistinna. Com-

Httrnitur. Qnunvia igitiu' etiun [«-

p«e Hduichen, Eicar.. in Vit. Cqii=I.

l%wni> indole pIcDiug j<in> rDioet

p. 513.

293 8ANCT1TT OF THE 3DSDAT. Book UL

tian Sabbath, bears noalliwiou to ita peculiar sanctity as
a Christian institution. It ia the day of the Sun, whicu
is to be observed by the general veneration ; the courts
were to be closed, and the uoise and tumult of public
business and legal litigation were no longer to violate
the repose of the sacred day. But the believer in the
new Paganism, of which the solar worship was the cha-
racteristic, might acquiesce without scruple in the saoo
R.nMiij of t'ty of the first day of the week. The genius
ihe sumiv of Christianity appears more manifestly in the
single civil act, which was exemptetl from the general
restriction on public business. The courts were to be
open for the manumission of slaves on the hallowed
day." lu the first aggression on the freedom of Pagan-
ism, though the earliest law speaks in a severe and
vindictive tone, a second tempers the stern language of
the foroier statute, and actually authorises the sapersti*
tion against which it is directed, as far as it might be
supposed beneficial to mankind. The itinerant sooth-
sayers and diviners, who exercised their arts in private
houses, formed no recognised part of the old religion.
Ajninn M- Their rites were supposed to be connected with
viiuttion. ^y kinds of cruel and licentious practices — with
mi^c and unlawful sacrifices. They performed tlieir
ceremoaies at midnight among tombs, where tliey
evoked the dead ; or in dark chambers, where tliev
made libations of the blood of the living. They were
darkly rumoured not to abstain, on occasions, from hu-
man blood, to offer children on the altar, and to read
the secrets of iiiturity in the palpitating entrails of
human victims. These unholy practices were proscribed
by the old Roman law and tba old Eoman religion.

■ Oh,

AGAINST LIVINATION.

29a

Thia kind of magic was a capital offence by the laws of
the Twelve Tables. Secret divinations had beea inter-
dicted by former emperors, — by Tiberiua and by Dio-
cletian.'' The suppreasioQ of these rites by Constantine
might appear no more than a strong regulation of police
for the preservation of the public morals." The sooth-
sayer who should presume to enter a private house to
jnractise his unlawful art, was to be burned alive ; those
who received him were condemned to the forfeiture of
their property and to exile. But in the pubbc temple,
according to the established rites, the priests and seers
might still unfold the secrets of futurity; the people
were recommended to apply to them rather than to the
ttiauthorised diviners, and this permission was more
ixplicitly guaranteed by a subsequent rescript' Those
Arts which professed to avert the thunder from the
■house, the hurrieane and the desolating shower from
the fruitful field, were expressly sanctioned as beneficial
to the husbandman. Even in case of the royal palace
leing struck by lightning, the ancient ceremony of
' propitiating the Deity was to be practised, and the
liaruBpiceB were to declare the meaning of the awiul
portent.**

Tet some acta of Constantine, even at thia early
period, might encourage the expanding hopes coneuntiDe'*
ot the Christiana that they were destined ^,^£^05.
before long to receive more than impartial "^'J'-
justice from the Emperor. His acta of liberality were

DO." Compare Beugnot,

s alquc ddubi u.

iM CEORCHES IN ROME. BuMW

beyond those of a sovereign disposed to redress the
wrongs of an oppressed class of his subjects ; he not
merely enforced by his edict the restoration of their
churches and estates, be enabled them, by his own
munificence — his gift of a latge suni of money to the
Christians of Africa — to rebuild their ruined edifices,
and restore their sacred rites with decent solemnity.'
oionSMin Many of the churches in Rome claim the firat
KoM. Christian Emperor for their founder. The

most distinguished of these, and, at the same time, those
which ore best supported in their pretensions to anti-
quity, stood on the site* now occupied by the Latersn
and by St. Peter's. If it could be ascertained at what
period in the life of Constantine these churches were
built, some light might be tlirowu on the history of hia
personal religion. For, the Lateran being an imperial
palace, the grant of a basihca within its walls for the
Christian worship (for such we may conjecture to have
been the first church), was a kind of direct recognition,
if not of his own regular personal attendance, at least of
his admission of Cbristiauity within bis domestic circle.''
The palace was afterwards granted to the Cliristians,
the first patrimony of the Popes. The Vatican suburb
seems to have been the favourite place for the settle-
ment of foreign religions. It was thickly i>eopled with
Jews from an early period;' and remarkable vestiges of
the worship of Cybele, which appear to have fiourislied
side by side, as it were, with that of Christianity, re-
mained to the fourth, or the fifth, century .' The site of

• Sae the Di-igioa! gnat of ROOD I Snt synod h*ld to decide an th« Do-
<3ilM U CiKilian. bishop of Cuthoes, latia Echism. OpMt. i. 23. Fiutta
III ICuNbius, Ecd. Hat. I. <i. nuT hive been a ChrutUn.

' Th» Uleninwill Iht r«id*n(* tf ■ BMnnge, Tii, 310, HiaU nf Jcttb.
Uw I'riniwi Piuitn; it ia oUled tho ' ' BoDien and Platuer, Koou' Be
IS Famte in tb* account of tha icbnlbaDg, i, p. 33.

3TNOD3 OF CHRISTIAN BISHOPS. 295

St. Peter's Chureh was believed to oociipy tho spot hal-
lowetl by his martyrdom ; and the Christians must liave
felt no unworthy pride in employing the materials of
Nero's Circus, the aeene of the sanguinary pleasures
of the first persecutor, on a church dedicated to the
memory of his now honoured, if not absolutely wor-
shipped, victim.

"With the protection, the Eraperor assumed the con-
trol over the affairs of the Christian communities ; to
the cares of the public administration was added a
recognised supremacy over the Christian Church. The
extent to which Christianity now prevailed is shown
by the importance at once assumed by the Christian
bishops, who brought not only their losses and their
snfferings during the persecution of Diocletian, but,
unhappily, likewise their quarrels, before the imperial
tribunal. From his palace at Treves, Constantine had
not only to assemble military councils to debate on t!ie
necessary measures for the protection of the German
frontier and the mainteuance of the imperial armies,
and councils of finance to remodel and enforce the taxa-
tion of tlie different provinces, but likewise synods of
Christian bishops to decide on the contests which had
grown up in the remote and unruly province of Africa.
The Emperor himself is said frequently to have appeared
without his imperial state, and, with neither guards nor
oCBcers around liim, to have mingled in the debate, and
expressed his satisfaction at their unanimity, whenever
that rare virtue adorned their counsels.^

For Constantine, though he could give protection.

I Eunb. Vit. Const. I. xliv. x"" [ c«u1ucIh( hiiDielf u
fovTtLitiKyiis tavrivrf KOir^ Triyrwv biihoju,
iltovotf. Eusebius niva too Ihiit be \

296 POPULAR PASSIOSS.

could not give peace to Christianity, It is the nature of
man, that whatever powerfully moves, agitates to expess
the public mind. With new views of those subjects
which make a deep and lasting impression, new passions.
awaken. The profound stagnation of the human mind
during the government of the earlier Cassars had been
stirred in its inmost depths by the silent underworking
of the new faith. Momentous questions, which, up to
that time, had been entirely left to a small intellectual
aristocracy, had been calmly debated in the villa of the
Roman senator or the grove sacred to philosophy, or
discussed by sophists whose frigid dialectics wearied
without exciting the mind, had been gradually bronght
down to the common apprehension. The nature of the
Deity ; the state of the soul after death ; the equality of
mankind in the sight of the Deity — even questions
■vhich are beyond the verge of human intellect; the
origin of evil ; the connexion of the physical and moral
world — had become general topics ; they were, for the
first time, the primary truths of a popular religion, and
naturally could not withdraw themselves from the alli-
ance with popular passions. These passions, as Chri*
tianity increased in power and influence, came into
more active operation ; as they seized on persons of
different temperament, instead of being themselves sub-
dued to Christian gentleness, they inflamed Christianity,
as it appeared to the world, into a new and more indo-
mitable principle of strife and animosity. Mankind,
even within the sphere of Christianity, retrograded to
the sterner Jewish character : and in its spirit, as well
as in its language, the Old Testament began to dominate J
over the Gospel of Christ.

The first civil wars which divided Christianity wei
tJiose of Donatism and the Trinitarian controverayj

r Cf

DISSENSIONS OF CHRISTIAN IT Y.

The Gnostic secta, in tlieir different varieties, and the
Manicliean, were rather rival religions than iummimm
Ckristian factiona. Though the adherents of ny.
these sects professed to be disciples of Ciiriatianity, yet
they had their own separate constitntions, their own
priesthood, their own ceremonial. Donatism
was a fierce and implacable schism in an esta-
bh'shed community. It was embraced with all the wild
ardour, and maintained with the blind obstinacy, of the
African temperament. It originated in a disputed ap-
pointment to the episcopal dignity at Carthage. The
Bishop of Carthage, if in name inferior (for everything
connected witit the ancient c&pital still maintained its
snperior dignity in the general estimation), stood higher,
probably, in proportion to the extent of his influence and
the relative numbers of his adherents, as compared with
the Pagan population, than any Christian dignitary in
the West. The African Churrhea had suffered more
than usual oppression during the persecution of Dio-
cletian, not improbably during the invasion of Maxen-
tius. External force, which in other quarters compressed
ttie body into closer and more compact unity, in Africa
left behind it a fatal principle of disorganisation. These
rival claims to the see of Carthage brought the opponent
|iarties into inevitable collision.

The pontifical offices of Paganism, ministering in a
ceremonial to which tlie people were either indifferent
or bound only by liabitual attachment, calmly descended
in their hereditary course, were nominated by the muni-
cipal magistracy, or attached to the higher civil
offices. They awoke no ambition, they caused hifnTciiy
no contention ; they did not interest society p»B"n priiai-
enough to disturb it. But the growth of the
■acerdotal power was a n-:oessary consequence of the

CHEISTIAS nlERARCnV.

development of Cbristiaiuty. The hierarcLy assei
(ttiey were believed to possess) the power of sealing
eternal destiny of man. From a post of danger, which
modest piety was compelled to assume by the unsought
and unsolicited sufi'ragea of the whole community, a
bishopric had become an office of dignity, influence, and,
at times, of wealth. The prelate ruled not now so much
by his admitted superiority in Cliristiaii firtue, as by
the inahenable authority of hia office. He opened oi
closed the door of the church, which was tantamount to
an admission or an esclusion from everlasting bliss; he
littered the sentence of excommunication, which
back tlie trembling delinquent among the lost
perishing Heathen. He had his throne in the mosi
tinguished part of the Christian temple ; and though yet
acting in the presence and in the name of his college of
presbyters, yet he was the acknowledged head of a large
community, over whose eternal destiny he held a \i
but not therefore less imposing and awful, dominit
Among the African Christians, perhaps by the
manding character of Cyprian, in his writings at lej
the episcopal power is elevated to its utmost
No wonder that, with the elements of strife fennen!
in the society, and hostile parties already arrayed
each other, the contest for this commanding post
often bo commenced with blind violence, and carried
with iireconcileable hostility."

In eveiy community, no doubt, had grown u]
severer party, who were anxious to contract the pah
salvation to the narrowest compass ; and a more libi

' TTm principal toatet of infortnii- I salijoined to them ; and (m their li
tion concerning the flonstist coBtio- I historj, inrious pess
rersy is liw woiki of Optatiw, with | of St. Augnstine.
the rsloible cDllectJoQ of doctiiDaiU |

THE TRADIT0H8.

H Chap.

H class, wlio were more lenient to the infinnitiea of their
■ brethren, and would extend to the utmost limits the
H beneficial efTects of the Kedemption. The fiery ordeal of
H the persecution tried the Christians of Africa by the
W most searching test, and drew more strongly the line of
demarcation. Among the summary proceedings of the
persecution, which were carried into eflfect with unre-
lenting severity by Anulinua, the Prefect of Africa (the
same who, by a singular vicissitude in political affairs,
became the instrument of Constantine's munificent
grants to the churches of his province),' none was more
painful to the feelings of the Christians tlian the demand
of the unconditional surrender of the furniture of their
sacred edifices, their chalices, their ornaments, above
all, the sacred writings.* The bishop and his priests
were made responsible for the full and unreserved de-
livery of these sacred possessions. Some from timidity,
others considering that by such concessions it might be
prudent to avert more dangerous trials, and that such
treasures, sacred as they were, might be replaced in a
more ilourishing state of the church, complied with
the demands of the magistrate ; but, by their severer
brethren, who, with more uncompromising courage, had
refused the least departure from the tone of unqualified
resistance, these men were branded with the nnTrriu
ignominious name of Traditors.™ Tliis became ''™'
the strong, the impassable, line of demarcation between

> S« the grant ot ConataDtJne re-

* There ia n »*:7 curjons and graphic
account of the ngOTDas pcnjiibitlDD
hi the saocd hooki id the Gesti Bpud
Zenophilum in Rooth, toI. W. p. 103.
The coJicn appear to hsre b«en onder
ttw curt of the rtsdcrs, who w«ra of

trade. There were s great number of
(VdJces, each probably cectainiog one
booh of the Scriptures.

'° The DoimtiEU iaTnrisbl^ cnlled
the CntholiG pnnjr the Traditon. S«
tista and the Acts ol Dd-
Martyr.

300 THE SEE OF CARTHAGE. Book III.

the coiitendini; factions. To the latest period of the
conflict, the Donatiats described the Catholic party by
tliat odious appellation.

The primacy of the African Church was the object of
ambition to these two parties : an unfortunate vacancy
at this time kindled the smouldering embers of strifa.
OHiMtibf MensuriuB had filled the see of Carthage with
cuuuga. prudence and moderation during theee days of
emergency. He was accused by the sterner zeal (S
Donatus, a Numidian bishop, of countenancing at least
the criminal concessions of the Traditors, It was said
that he had deluded the Government by a subtle strata-
gem ; he had substituted certain heretical writings for
the genuine Scriptures ; had connived at their seizure;,
and calmly seen them delivered to the flames. The
Donatists either disbelieved, or despised as a paltry
artifioe, this attempt to elude the glorious danger at
resistance. But, during tlie life of Mensurius, his chfc
ract^r and station had overawed the hostile pai
Mensurius was summoned to Home, to answer on
charge of the concealment of the deaccm Felix, accused
of a political offence — the publication of a libel against
the Emperor. On his departure, Mensurius entrusted
to the deacons of the community the valuable vessels of
gold and silver belonging to the church, of which he left
an accurate inventory in the hands of a pious and aged
woman. Mensui-ius died on his return to Carthage.
Caecilian, a deacon of the church, was raised by the
unanimous suffrages of the clei^ and people to the see
of Carthage. He was consecrated by Felix, Bishop of
Apthimga. Hia first step was to demand the vessels of
the church. By the advice of Botras and Celeusios,
two of the deacons, competitors it is said with Csecilian
for the see, they were refused to a bishop irregularlu

c'ha^^H

a ^H
laed^

APPEAL TO THE CIVIL POWER. 301

elected, and consecrated by a notorious Traditor. A
Spaniali female, of noble birth and of opulence, accused
of personal hostility to Ciecilian, animated the Car-
thaginiao faction ; but the whole province assumed
the right of interference with the appointment to the
primacy, and DonatiiB, Eishop of Casas Nigrte, placed
himself at the head of the opponent party.

The commanding mind of Donatns swayed the counts
leas hierarchy which crowded the different provinces of
Africa. The Numidian biahopB took the lead; Secun-
dus, the primate of Numidia, at the summons of
Donatus, appeared in Carthage at the head of seventy
of hia bishops. This self-installed Council of Jw"' n
Carthage proceeded to oite Csecilian, who re- 9°'™-
fused to recognise its authority. The Council declared
-his election void. The consecration by a bishop guilty
of tradition, was the principal ground oe which his
election was annulled. But darker charges were openly
advanced, or secretly murmured, against Cfeciiian;
charges which, if not entirely imgrounded, show that
the question of tradition had, during the persecution,
divided the Christians into fierce and hostile factions.
Ke was said to have embittered the last hours of those
whose more daimtless resistance put to ahame the
timorous compliance of Mensurius and his party. He
had taken his station, with a body of armed men, and
precluded the pious zeal of their adherents from obtain-
ing access to the prison of those who had been seized
by the Government ; " he had prevented, not merely tiie
consolatory and inspiriting visits of kinsmen and friends,
biit even the introduction of food and other comforts, in
their state of star\-ing destitution. The Carthaginian

a02

COUNCIL OF EOMK

b^l

faction proceeded to elect Majorinus to the vacant
Both parties appealed to the civil power ; and AnulJni
the Prefect of AMca, who duriug the reign of Diocletian
had seeu tlie Cliristians dragged before bis tribunal, and
whose authority they then disclaimed with uncompro-
mising unanimity, now saw them crowding in hostile
factions to demand his interference in their dom<istic
discords.

The cause was referred to the imperial deciHion dt.
Conatautine, At a later period the Doiiatists,
worsted in the strife, bitterly reproached their advi
saries with this appeal to the civil tribunal, " What hare
Christians to do with kings, or bishops with palaces ? " *
Their adversaries justly recriminatedj that they had
been as ready as themselves to request the intervention
of the Government. Constantino delegated the judge-
meat in their cause to the biahopa of Gaul ; " but the first
council was composed of a great majority of II
conncii o( bishops ; and Rome, for the first time, witni
^■""^ a public trial of a Christian cause before

assembly of bishops, presided over by her prelate.
Council was formed of the three Gallic bishops of Qt
logne, of Autun, and of Aries. The Italian bishops ('
may conjecture that these were considered the mi

" Oiitalus, I, 33.

P AugiistJDe, writing whrs (1m epl-
ipol BuOioi'itj slooj ou > le'el
luvt la or Gien higher Uian the

It dare to assume
« election of a I

1 K^i»a

ihop. -
Cftofl ejn^copi judi-
u. B. Natura] equity

Christian comniisslaD,
Optatas ascribes to Consi

kh it is diAiculC 1o stcoacile with
pDblic condact u rrganls Chtte.

litf at Ma periol of his bl'e. The

mdl el Rome wss bM A.D. 313,

I Oclober.

riie (tecrtes of the Council of Rome
nnil of Arle. with other documenis on
Hhject.mnjbefoundinthefiurtk ■

Chip. I. COUNCIL OF EOME. 303

important sees, or were filled by the most influential
prelates) were those of Milan, Cesena, Quintiano, Ilimini,
Florence, Pisa, Faenza, Capua, Benevento, Terracina,
Prsneste, Tres Tabemie, Ostia, TJrsiuum (Urbiniun),
Forum Claudii.

Cffidlian and Donatua appeared each at the head of
ten bishopa of hia party. Both denounced their adver-
Baries as gnilty of the crime of tradition. The partisans
of Donatus rested their appeal on the invalidity uf an
oi-dination by a bishop, Felix of Apthunga, who had
been guilty of that delinquency. The party of Ceecilian
accused almost the whole of the Numidian bishops, and
Donatus himself, as involved in the same guilt. It was
a wise and temperate policy in the Catholic party, to
attempt to cancel all embittering recollections of the
days of trial and infirmity ; to abolish all distinctiouH,
wliich on one part led to pride, on the other to degra-
dation ; to reconcCe, in those halcyon days of pi-osperity,
the whole Christian world in one harmonious confederacy.
This policy was that of the GoTernment. At this early
period of his Christianity, if he might yet be called a
Christian, Constantino was little likely to enter into
the narrow and exclusive principles of the Donatists.
As Emperor, Christianity was recommended to bis favour
by the harmonising and tranquillising influence which it
exercised over a large body of the people. If it broke
up into hostile feuds, it lost its value as an ally or an
instrument of civil government. But it was exactly
this levelling of all religiouB distinctions, this liberal and
comprehensive spirit, that would annihilate the less im-
portant differences, wldeh struck at the vital principle
of Donatiam. They had confronted all the malice of the
persecutor, they had diadaiued to compromise any prin-
ciple, to concede the minutest point ; and were thisy tc

304 COCNCIL AT AKLES. Book III.

abandon & BU[)eriority so hardly earned, and to acquiesce
in the readmisaion of oil those who had forfeited their
CJiristian privileges to the same rank ? \\'ere they not
to exercise the high function of readmission into the
fold with proper severity ? The decision of the Council
was favourable to the cause of Csecihan. Donatus ap-
pealed to the Emperor, who retained the heads of both
parties in Italy, to allow time for the province to regain
its quiet In defiance of the Emperor, both the leaders
fled back to Afriea, to set themselves at the head of
*4i.3n. their respective factions. The patient Con-
"'*"* stantine summoned a ue\v, a more remote
council at Aries. Ciecilian and thu African bishops
were cited to appear in tliat distant province; public
vehicles were furnished for their conveyance at tlie Em-
peror's charge ; each bishop was attended by two of his
inferior clergy, with three domestics. The Bishop of
Aries presided in this Council, which confirmed the
judgement of that in Kome.

A second Donatus now appeared upon the scene, of
more vigorous and more persevering character, greater
ability, and with all the energy and sell'-confidence which
enabled him to hold together the faction. The party
now assumed the name of Donatists. On the death of
Majorinus, Donatus succeeded to the dignity of Anti-
Bishop of Carthage : the whole African province con-
tinued to espouse the quarrel ; the authority of the
Government, wliich liad been invoked by both parties, was
BCOmftilly rejected by that against which the award was
made. Three times was tlie deciisiou repeated in favour
of the Catholic party, at Home, at Aries, and at Milan ;
each time was more strongly established the
self-evident truth, whicli has been so late re-
fx>giiised by tlie Christiau world, the incompetency of an}

DONATCSTS PEEBECUTBD. 305

Council to reconcile religious diEferences. The HufFragea
of the many cannot bind the consciences, or enlighten
the minds, or even overcome the obstinacy, of the few.
Neither party can yield without abandoning the very
principles by which they have been constituted a party.
A commission issued to ^lius, Prefect of the district,
to examine the charge against Felix, Bishop of Apthunga,
gave a favourable verdicfi An imperial commisfiion of
two delegates to Carthage, ratified the decision of the
former councils. At every turn the Donatists protested
against the equity of the decrees; they loudly com-
plained of the unjust and partial influence exercised by
OsiuB, Bishop of Cordova, over the mind of the Em-
peror. At length the tardy indignation of tlie Govern-
ment had recourse to violent measures. The D™»Ma«
Donatist bishops were driven into exile, their p*"™""*-
churches destroyed or sold, and the property seized for
the imperial revenue. The Donatists defied the armed
interference, as they had disclaimed the authority, of the
Government. This first development of the principles
of Christian sectarianism was aa stem, as inflexible, and
as persevering, as in later times. The Donatists drew
their narrow pale around their persecuted sect, and
asserted themselves to be the only elect people of Christ ;
the only people whose clergy could claim an unbroken
apostolical succession, vitiated in all other communities
(di Christians by the inexpiable crime of tradition.
Wherever they obtained possession of a church they
bamed the altar ; or, where wood was scarce, scraped
off the infection of heretical communion ; they melted
the cups, and sold, it was said, the sanctified metal for
profane, perhaps for Pagan, uses ; they i-ebaptized all

306 THE CIECUMCELLI0N3.

who joined their sect; they made the virgins ret
their vows ; tiiey would not even permit the bodies
the Catholics to repose in peace, lest they should
lute the common cemeteries. The implacable fac1
darkened into a sanguinary feud. For the first
human blood was shed in conflicts between followers of
the Prince of Peace. Each party recriminated on the
other, but neither denies the barbarous scenes of mas-
sacre and licence which devastated the African cities.
The Donatiats boasted of their martyrs, and the cruelties
of the Catholic party rest on their own admission : they
deny not, they proudly vindicate their barbarities — " X^
the vengeance of God to be defrauded of its victims ?
— and they appeal to the Old Testament to justify,
the examples of Moses, of Phtneaa, and of Elijah,
Christian duty of slaying by thousands the renegadi
or the unbelievera.

In vain Constantino at length published an edict of
peace : the afQicted province was rent asunder
till the close of his reign, and during that of
his son, by this religious warfare. For, on the other hand,
Tbecircmn- the barbarous fanaticism of the Circum cell ions
wiihmt involved the Donatist party in the guilt of in-
surrection, and connected them with revolting atrocities,
wliicb they were accused of countenancing, of exciting^
if not actually sanctioning by their presence,
which in the opulent cities, or tlie well-ordered commi

' This damning fnaage it fonml
in Uw work of the Catholic Optatiu :
" QnaH Dmnino in vindictam Dei niillus
DMrcBtur occidi." Oompirc thewhole
chapter, iit. 6. An able writer (Mr.
Brigbl) (Bialory of Ihf Churchl has
•b)aet«d to hii atitempnt. I adhere to \

of in-
■ities, m

Th«n
nmoafl

it. There ii a Tciy ttrong diacijj
of the peraecutlDns which th«7 endured
from the Calhollci in the letter pM
in b; the Donatiat bishop Habet
Deum in tho conlercnce held daring
th; reign of HoDoriui. Apod Dnplg
Ko. 258. in fine.

Cbaf. I. THE CIRCUMCELLI0K3. 307

nitiea, led to fierce and irrGconcileftible contention, grew
np among the wild borderers on civilisation into fiiiia-
tical frenzy. Where Christianity has outstripped civOi-
Batiou, and has not liad time to effect its beneficent and
humanising change, wiiether in the bosom oi' an ohi
Bociety, or within the limits of Bavage life, it becomes,
in times of violent escitement, instead of a pacific prin-
ciple to assuage, a new element of ungovernable strife,
The long peace which had been enjoyed by the province
of Africa, and the flourishing corn-trade which it eon-
ducted as the gi'anary of Eorae and of the Italian pro-
vinces, had no doubt extended the pursuits of agriculture
into the Numidian, Grsetulian, and Mauritaniau villages.
The wild tribes had gradually become industrious pea-
sants, and among them Christianity had found an open
field for its exertions, and the increasing agricultural
settlements bad become Christiau bisboprice. Bui the
savage was yet only half-tamed ; and no sooner had the
flames of the Donatist conflict spread into these peaceful
districts, than the genuine Christian was lost in the fiery
marauding cliild of the desert. Maddened by oppres-
sion, wounded in his religious feelings by Ihe expulsion
and persecution of the bishops, from his old nature he
resumed the fierce spirit of independence, the contempt
for the laws of property, and the burning desire of
revenge. Of his new religion he retained only the per-
verted language, or rather that of the Old Testament,
with an implacable hatred of all hostile sects ; a stern
ascetic continence, which perpetually broke out into
paroxysms of unbridled licentiousness; and a fanatic
passion for martyrdom, which assumed the acts of a kind
of methodical insanity.

The Circumcellions commenced their ravages during
the reign of Constantino, and continued in arms during

308 THE CiaCDSfCELLIONs. Boob 1*^

that of his anccesaor Conatans. No sooner had the
provincial authorities received inatructiona to reduce the
province by force to religious unity, than the Circnm-
celUons, who had at first confined their ravages to
disorderly and hasty incursions, broke out into open
revolt.' They defeated one body of the imperial troops,
and killed Uraaciue, the Boman general. They aban-
doned, by a simultaneous impulse, their agricultural
pursuits; they proclaimed themselves the instruments
of Divine justice, and the protectors of the oppressed ;
they first asserted the wild theory of the civil equality
of mankind, which has so often, in later periods of the
world, become the animating principle of Christian
fanaticism; they proclaimed the abolition of slavery;
they thrust the prond and opulent master from I
chariot, and made him walk by the side of his «
who, in his turn, was placed in the stately vehicle ; 1
cancelled all debts, and released the debtors ;
moat sanguinary acts were perpetrated in the nan
religion, and Christian language was profaned b
association with their atrocities. Their leadere "
the Captains of the Saints ; * the battle hymn, '
to God ! " Their weapons were not swords, for Clu
had forbidden the use of the sword to Peter, but 1
and massy clubs, with which they beat their miseralj
victims to death." They were bound by vo
severest continence, but the African temperament,

■ The Circomcel lions wera uujie- names which Ihey asiiimeJ.

quBioted with the Latin InDgiinge, Uenm appous amiiag Ihe

and are said to have spoken onlf Uib bishops in a conlereDce held witli d
Punic of the arnntry. : Calhcliu at Carthage, i.

' AngLstiae asacrla that Ihe^ were the report of Iha confa

led by their dorgy, t, b. p. &75. Donatislan Monuments oiUeoted L

" The Donatista antielpated our Dupin, at the end of his edition J

?flrilani in lln»e strange i-eligious OpIatuB,

Chap, J,

PASSION FOR MAHTYRDOM.

its state of feveriBli excitement, was too strong for
the bonds of fanatical restraint ; the companies of the
Saints not merely abused the privileges of war by the
most licentious outrages on the females, but were at-
tended by troops of drunken prostitutes whom they
called their sacred virgins. But the most extraordinary
development of their fanaticism, was their Pi^oaiar
rage for martyrdom. When they could not "^y"^-
obtain it from the sword of the enemy, they inflicted it
upon tliemselvea. The ambitious martyr declared him-
self a candidate for the crown of glory : he then gave
himself up to every kind of reveliy, pampering, as it
were, and fattening the victim for sacrifice. When he
had wrought himself to the pitch of frenzy, he rushed
out, and, witli a sword in one hand and money in the
other, he threatened death and offer-ed reward to the
first comer who would satisfy his eager longings for the
glorious crown. They leaped from precipices; they
went into the Pagan temples to provoke the vengeiiuce
of the worshippers.

Such are the excesses to which Christianity is con
stantly liable, as the religion of a savage and uncivilised
people ; but, on the other hand, it must be laid donii
as a political axiom equally universal, that this fanati-
cism rarely bursts out into disordere dangerous to
society, unless goaded and maddened by persecution."

Donatism was the fatal schism of one province of
Christendom: the few communities formed on these
rigid principles in Spain and in Itome died away in
neglect; but however diminished its influence, it dis-
tracted the African province for three centuiies, and

310 THE D0NAT13TS. Book lU

waa only finally extirpated with Christianity itself, bv
the all-absorbing progresa of Mohammedanism. At
one time Constaatine resorted to milder measures, and
issued aa edict of toleration. But in the reign of Con-
etans, tlie persecution was renewed with more anrelent-
ing severity. Two imperial ofBcers, Paul and Macuriua,
were sent to reduce the province to religious unity.
The Circnmcellious encountered them with obstinate
valour, but were totally defeated in the sanguinary
battle of Bagnia. In the latfir reigns, when the lawa
against heresiy became more frequent and severe, tlie
Donatists were named with marked reprabation in the
condemnatory edicts. Yet, in the time of Honorius,
they boasted, iu a conference with the Catholics, that
they equally divided at least the province of Numidia,
and that the Catholics only obtained a majority of
bishops by the unfair means of subdividing the sees.
This conference was held in the vain, though then it
might not appear ungrounded, hope of reuniting the
great body of the Donatists with the Catholic com-
munion. The Donntisfs, says Gibbon, with his usual
-sarcasm, and more than his usual truth, had received a
practical lesson on the consequences of their own prin-
ciples. A small sect, the Maximinians, had been formed
within their body, who asserted themselves to be the
ouly genuine Church of God, denied the efficacy of the
sacraments, disclaimed the apostolic power of the clergy,
and rigidly appropriated to their own narrow sect the
meiita of Christ, and the hopes of salvation. But
neither this fatal warning, nor the eloquence of St.
Augustine, wrought mnch effect on the Puritans of
Africa ; they still obstinately denied the legality of
Csciliau's ordination ; still treated their adversaries as
the dastardly traditora of the Sacred Writings ; still

CHA>. I.

THE DONATISTS.

311

dwelt apart in the unquestioning conyiction that they
were the sole subjects of the kingdom of Heaven ; that
to them alone belonged the privilege of immortality
through Christ, while the rest of the world, the un-
worthy followers of Christ, not less than the blind and
unconverted Heathen, were perishing in their outcast
and desperate state of condemnation.

7 Donatists are mentioned at the
end of the sixth century (see Gregory
the Gnat, EpUt. i. 72-75, ii« 33),

and are still powerful enough to eject
the Catholics from their churches
Greg. Epist. iii. 32-ar>, t. €&.

812 THE EAST STILL FAGAIi. Boos HL

CHAPTEE IL

Constaatiuc becomea sole Emperor.

Bt the victory over Maxentius, Constantine had be-
Tho emi come master of half the Roman world. Chris-
EiiiL Rum tianity, if it had not contributed to the sucpesB,
shared the advantage of the triumph. By the Edict of
Milan the Christians had resumed all their former
rights aa citizens, their chnrchea were reopened, their
publio services recommenced, and their silent work of
aggression on the hostile Paganism began again under
the most promising auspices. The equal favour with
which they were beheld hy the sovereign, appeared both
to their enemies and to themselves an open declaration
on their side. The public acta, the laws, and the medals
of Consfantine,' show how the lofty eclectic indifferent-
ism of the Emperor, which extended impartial protec-
tion over all the conllicting faiths, or attempted to
mingle together their least inharmonious elements,
gradually but slowly gave place to the progressive in-
fluence of Christianity. Christian bishops appeared as
regular attendants upon the court ; the internal dissen-
sions of Christianity became affairs of state. The Pagan

• Eckhel loppoMs that the Hfnthen moiiftHm, nunqunm in f& snt Christi

sfmbola disapprarei tiiim ttie coitis imHginem aut CoDalaDtlni eSgiem

of CoDAtantJii? ail«r hit victory aver craoe iasi^em reperj« . , , . Iq

iiginiua. Doctr, Nnm. id Conalant. donaullia jam mcMiognimtna Christ

I may add here another observation $ f iuueiitnr labaro KOt Tesillo.

"F this great authority on lucb sab- jam in areft nutnmi Bolitari* einiliiit,

jecta: " EiciJla iniivetsam Constnntini jura aliia, ut patsbjt, compsret moJis.'

THE CLERICAL OBDEE.

party saw, with inei'eafling apprelienpion for their own
authority and the fate of Home, the period of the
secular games, on the due celebration of which de-
pended the duration of the Eoman sovereignty, pass
away unlionoured.'' It was an extraordinary
change in the constitution of the WeBtem
world, when the laws of the empire issued from the
court of Treves, and Italy and Africa awaited the
changes in their civil and religious constitution, from
the seat of government on the barbarous German
frontier, ITie munificent grant of Constantino for the
restoration of tiie African churches, had appeared to
commit him in favour of the Christian party, and had
perhaps indirectly contributed to inflame the diesensioES
in that province.

A new law recognised the clerical order as a distinct
and priviteged class. It exempted them from °***? ""^
the onerous municipal offices, which had begun tiiemw.
to press heavily upon the more opulent inhabitants of
the towns. It is the surest sign of misgovemment,
when the higher classes shrink from the posts of honour
and of trust. During the more flourishing days of the
empire, the Decorionate, the chief municipal dignity,
had been the great object of provincial ambition.
The Decurions formed the Senates of the towns; they
supplied the magistrates from their body, and had the
right of electing them.'

Under the new financial system introduced by Dio-
detian, the Decurions were made responsible for the full
amount of taxation imposed by the cataster or assess-

' SaTign? RemiHlHi Reelit, i. 18, i
Compans ths vholg took of tha Theo- :
Code, De DecartoulbuB. Per- |

314

THE CLEEICAl ORDEE.

ment on the town and district. As the payment b
more burthensome or difficult, the tenants, or ev
proprietors, either became insolvent or fled their countr
But the inexorable revenue still exacted from the Dec
rions the whole sum assessed on their town or distriof
The office itself grew into disrepute, and the law i
obliffed to force that upon the reluctant citizen of wes
or character, which had before been an object of e
emulation and competition.^ The Christians obtaini
the exemption of their ecclesiastical order from thei
civil offices. The exemption was grounded on the jui
plea of its incompatibility with their religious dutieg
The Emperor declared, in a letter to Ciecilian, Bishop «
Carthage, that the Christian priesthood ought not to I '
withdrawn from the worship of God, which is the priid
cipal source of the prosperity of the empire. The effee
of this immunity shows the oppressed and disorg
state of society.' Numbers of persons, in order to seem
this exemption, rushed at once into the clerical order 4
the Christians; and this manifest abuse demanded e
immediate modification of the law. None were to I
admitted info the sacred older except on the \
i.D. 310. of a religious charge, and then those only whoi
^"'t£*"Se- poverty exempted them imm the municipi
eariuQiit. functions.' Those whose property i
upon them the duty of the Decurionate, were ordered t

DQ the taiBlJon or Ibt empire, in the
TrtuisactioDs of ihe Berlla Acaderoy ,
and tnuiElBtel in the Csmbridge Clat-
sIchI ReHsrdiu.

• The offieen of the joy«l hoQas-
hold, and thair deacendinCs, hid tlie
aune emnptioii, wbidi mtt likewiae
eiteodod to the Jewish arehiijiiagDgl

or elders. Le Beau, IS
Theodos. ivi. 8, 2.

The priraU sod the Fliminn, \>
itie DecurioDB, were eumpt (Voia a
Uix, iBferiDr offices. Cod. Theodos. ij

See the Tarioui b

jeet, Codu Thcod«, i

Cod, TbeodoB. it

D t}^ «

■WAHS WITH LICINICS.

313

abandon their religious profession. SncL was the despotio
power of the sovereign, to which the Christian Church
still submitted, either on the principle of passive obe-
dience, or in gratitude for the protection of the civil
authority. The legislator interfered without scruple in
the domestic administration of the Christian comniu-
nity, and the Christians received the Imperial edicts in
silent flubmisaion. The appointment of a Christian, the
celebrated Lactantius, to superintend the education of
Crispin, the eldest son of the Emperor, was at once
a most decisive aud most influential step towards the
public declaration of Christianity aa the religion of the
Imperial family. Another important law, the ground-
work of the vast property obtained by the Church, gave
it the fiillest power to receive the bequests of the pious.
Their right of holding property had been admitted appa-
rently by Alexander Severua, annulled by Diocletiau,
and was now conceded in the most explicit terms by
Constantine.''

But half the world remained stCl disunited from the
dummion of Constantine and of Christianity. The first
war with Licinius had been closed by the wurswiui
battles of Cibalte and Mardia, and a new parti- i-"^"-
tion of the empire. It was succeeded by a hollow and
treacherous peace of nine years,' The favour shown by
Constantine to his Christian subjects, seems to have
thrown Licinius upon the opposite interest. The Edict
of Milan had been issued in the joint names of the two

irabiliqiie

" Habtit unusquiBqna
■anctis^lmo CstlioliciE no
coacilio, decedens bononu

judicU. Kihil ert, qaod mgU hoini-
1 Bib'ii debetUT, qoam at laprnno

voluntaiii, pint(|uam aiiud jam r^lle
non ptHsint, libor sit status, et Uoais,
qood iterum non redil, [mpeiium. C.
Th. in. 2, 4, De Episnoris- Tlii" b«
is Bsignal U> the yen 321.
< 314 to S23,

S16 L1C1NID8 BECOMES Book IU.

Emperors. In his conflict witli MaximiQ, Licinius had
LTcnged the oppressions of Christianity on their most
relentless adversary. But when the crisis approached
which was to decide the fete of the whole empire, as
Constantiiie had adopted every means of securing their
cordial support, so Licinius repelled the allegiance of
his Christian subjecta by disfavour, by mistrust, by ex-
pulsion from offices of honour, by open persecution, till,
in the laoguf^e of the ecclesiast.ical historian, the world
was divided into two regions, those of day and of night''
The vices as well as the policy of Licinius might disin-
LkMuiw cline him to endure the importunate presence
S3S^" of the Christian bishops in his court; but he
"••^ might disguise his hostile disposition to the
churchmen under his declared dislike of eunuchs and of
courtiers," — the vermin, as he called them, of the
palace. The stern avarice of Licinius would be con-
trasted to his disadvantage with the profuse liberality
of Constantino; his looser debaucheries with the severer
morals of the Western Emperor. Licinius proceeded to
purge his household troops of those whose inclination to
his rival he might, not without reason, mistrust ; none
were permitted to retain their rank who refused to
sacrifice. He prohibited the synods of the clergy, which
he naturally apprehended might degenerate into conspi-
racies in favour of his rivaL He confined the bishops to
the care of their own dioceses." He affected, in his care
for the public morals, to prohibit the promisciious
worship of men and women in the churches;' and ip

^ Eiwb. ViU CoDsUnt. i. 49.

^ ^Mdanum rt Anlioonim omDimi
Tebement dDtaitur, tinens sorimtqu
pnlatii Ktappellaiu. Aui'. Vict Epit.

MORE DECIDEDLY PAOAX. 317

Eulted the sanctity of the Christian worship, by com-
manding that it should be celebrated in the open air.
The edict prohibiting all access to the prisons, though a
Btrong and unwilling testimony to the charitable exer-
tions of the Christians, and by their writers represented
as an act of wanton and unexampled inhumanity, was
caused probably by a jealous policy, rather than by
wanton cruelty of temper. It is quite clear that the
prayers of the Chiiatians, perhaps more worldly weapons,
were armed in favour of Constantine. The Eastern
Churches would be jealous of their happier Western
brethren, and naturally would be eager to bask in the
equal sunshine of Imperial favour. At length, either
fearing the effect of their prayers with the Deity whom
they addressed,'* or their influence in alienating the
minds of their votaries irom his own cause to that of
him who, in the East, was considered the champion of
the Christian cause, Licinius commanded the Cliriatian
churches in Pontus to be closed ; he destroyed some of
them, perhaps for defiance of his edicts. Some acts of
persecution took place; the Chi'istians fled again into
the country, and began to conceal themselves in the
woods and caves. Many instances of violence, some of
martyrdom, occurred,'' particularly in Pontns. There

> IuiTiXi!irBcu yip abic frfiiTa i Lirinio miirtfres fndaat prEeteiii iinin
irip B&ToD Titi tix"t miytiSiri | epkuopos." Campoie RnlasTt. Them
fai^if tdSto AoTifii/HjiDi, iw" fiirfp | is pi-eai difficulty nbont Eaaileus,
raiBta'ptXiiSsB'^tKfasiriirTaitpir- Bishop of Atnssi. He a gentrallr
■nir Tjiiis vol tJv BiAr IKK/iaSv icckoncd by the GrwJt writeii u a
rivtiFTo. Euseb. s. 8. martyr {see Pagi ad an. Sltf, D, I.);

4 Sozoinen. H. E. i. T, a»erU that but he Is expressly etat«d by I'hiloa-
nunj of the clergy, as well as bishops, torgius (lib. i.), conhnned by Athn-
were mailyred. Dodwell, howecer, nasius (Orat. 1, cootrs Ariaooa), to
ttbesrves (De Paucitale UBrtymiD. 9 1 ).
CaviBDt rabulaUii'H ni> qaoi alios luh |

816

PAGA^^SM OF Licisms.

was a wide-spread apprebension tliat b new and general
persecution was about to break out, when the Emperor
of the West moved, in the language of the Christian
historian, to rescue the whole of mankiDd from the
tyranny of one.'

Whether or not, in fact, Licinius avowed the immi-
nent war to be a sti-ife for master}' between the two
religions, the decisive struggle between the ancient
goda of Eome and the new divinity of the Christians ;'
whether he actually led the chief officers and his most
eminent political partisans into a beautifiU conseorated
grove, crowded with the images of the gods ; and ap-
pealed, by the light of blazing torches, and amid the
smoke of sacrifice, to the gods of their ancestors against
his atheistic adversaries, the followers of a foreign and
unknown deity, whose ignominious sign was displayed in
the vau of their armies ; nevertheless, the propagation of
such stories shows how completely, according to their
own sentiments, the interests of Christianity were iden-
tified with the cause of Constaotine.' On both sides
were again marshalled all the supernatural terrors
which religious hope or superstitious awe conld sum-
mon. Diviners, soothsayers, and Egyptian magicians,
animated the troops of Lidiiius." The Christians in
the army of Coustantine attributed all his success to
the prayers of the pious bishops who accompaviied his
army, and especially to the holy Labarum, whose bearer
passed unhurt among showers of fatal javelin&*

^Tpiirq. Socomi-n, i. 7.

livenal eminre.
' ViL Conrtnnt. li. 4.

■ Easeb. Vit. Conrtaut. i, 49.

■ EuKbiiudKlnratbatbchnrdtliii
Dm the lipc of Conrtnntine falmself.
Be mall, who in hii piaic gave up

BATTLE OF HADBIAMOPLE.

fCHAr. II
The battle of Hadrianople, and the naval victory of
Crispufi, decided the fate of the world, and the j^']? "i
establishment of Christianity as the religion of ^.b. saa.
the empire. The death of Licinius reunited the whol*
Eoman world under the eeeptre of Constantine.

EusebiuB ascribes to Constantine, during this battle, an
art of Christian mercy, at least as unusual as the appear-
ance of the banner of the cross at the head of the Boman
army. He issued orders to spare the lives of his enemies,
and offered rewards for all captives brought in alive.
Even if this be not strictly true, its exaggeration or in-
Tention, or even its relation as a praiseworthy act, shows
the new spirit which was working in the mind of man.'

Among the first acts of the sole Emperor of the world,
were the repeal of all the edicts of Licinius against the
Christians, the release of all prisoners from the dungeon
or the mine or tLe eervile aad humiliating occupations
to which some had been contemptuously condemned in
the manufactories conducted by women; the recall of
all the exiles ; the restoration of all who had been de-
prived of their rank in the army, or in the civil service ;
the restitution of all property of which they had been
despoiled, — that of the martyrs to the legal heirs, where
there were no heirs, to the Church. The property of the
churches was not only restored, but the power to receive
donations in land, already granted to the Western
cliurches, was extended to the Eastern. The Emperor
himself set the example of giving back all that had
been confiscated to the state.

Constantine issued two edicts, recounting all these
exemptions, restitutions, and privileges — one addressed

320 CONDUCT OF CONSTANTINE.

to the Churches, the other to the cities of the East ; tho

latter alone ia extant. Ita tone might certainly indicate
that Conataotine considered the contest with Licinius as,
JQ some degree, a war of religion. His oivn triamj^
and the fate of bis enemies are adduced as unanswer-
able evidences to the superiority of that God whose
followers bad been so cruelly persecuted. The resto-
ration of the Christians to all their property aod immo-
nities, was an act not merely of juatioe and humanity,
tut of gratitude to the Deity.

But Constantino now appeared more openly to the
whole world as the head of the Christian community.
He sat, not in the Roman senate deliberating on the
affairs of the empire, but presiding in a council of
Christian bishops, aummooed from all parta of
the world, to decide, aa of iufinite importance
to the Eoman Empire, a contested point of the Christian
faith. The council was held at Niciea, one of the most
ancient of the Eastern cities. The transactions of the
Council, the questions which were agitated before it, and
the decrees which it issued, will be postponed for the
present, in order that tliis important controversy, which
so long divided Christianity, may best be related in a
continuous narrative : we pass to the following year.

Up to this period Christianity had seen much to
copdnctot admire, and little that it would venture to dis-
t^anttoB approve, in the public acts or in the domeatio
eQemiHL character of Constantine. His offences against
the humanity of the Gospel would find palliation, or
rather vindication and approval, in a waiTior and a
sovereign. The age was not yet so fully leavened with
Christianity as to condemn the barbarity of that Roman
pride which exposed without scruple the brave captive
chieftains of the German tribes in the atnphitheatn

QUP.U, TO HIS ENEMIES. 321

Again, after the triumph of Constantine over Maxentiiia,
this bloody spectacle had been renewed at Treves, on a
new victory of Constantine over the Barbarians. Tlie
extirpation of the family of a competitor for the empirts
would pass ae the usual, perhaps the necessary, policy
of the times. The public hatred would applaud the
death of the voluptuous Maxentius, and that of his
family would be the inevitable consequences of his guilt.
Licinius had provoked his own fate by resistance to the
will of God and his persecution of the rehgion of Christ,
Kor was the fall of Licinius followed by any general
proscription ; his son lived for a few years to be the
undistinguished victim of a sentence which involved
others in whom the public mind took far deeper interest.
Licinius himself was permitted to live a short time at
Thessalonica." It is said by some that his life was
guaranteed by a solemn oath, and that he was permitted
to partake of the hospitality of the conqueror.* Yet his
death, though the brother-in-law of Constantine, was but
an expected event.'' The tragedy which took place in
the family of Constantine betrayed to the surprised and
anxious world, that, if his outward demeanour showed

' Le Bau (Hilt, du Bns fCmpir?,
i. B20) neitai with grait feimcM
the varying Kccounta of the death of
LiciDiDs, BDd the motives which are
taxi to haTB prompted it. But he
protnla to infer that Liduiuj miuC
hacc beea jwMj of »m« Dew crime,
to induce ConatnntinB to violnte hia
nlema oath.

■ Cratn rdigioa
Thi!^oiiioB privBtD
Kutrop. lib, r,

^ EiiMbiiu tKjs tbn
VOL. 11.

death bj the Jaws of war, and opcnly
approvee of his esecution and thnt of
the other enemies of God. Hiiuf

tltav TiiMplB, . . . Kal ai-iiAAviTD.
T^Jc icporitmvaav ^fxovrts timti,
cl Tqt Sto/taxia! irinBouXoi, How
singularly does tbifl contra^ with thtf
pass^ above I See p. 319 (Vit.
Const, ii. IS) bigotiy and mtrcj ad.
TBDcing hand in hand — the stemei
creed ovei^powering the GospeJ.

322 CKISPU8, SON OF CO:;STAKTIXE. Book Itt ■

respect or veneration for Christianity, its milder doc-
trines had made little impresaion on the uuBoftened
Pa>^niam of his heart.

Crispus, the son of Constantine by Miiiervina, his
1.0. 3a«. first wife, was a youth of high and brilliant
cnsf«m,taa promise. In his early yeare his ediicatioa had
lino. been entrusted to the celebrated Lactantius,

and there ia reason to suppose that he was imbued
by his eloquent preceptor with the Christian doc-
trines ; but the gentler sentiments instilled by the new
faith had by no means unnerved the vigour or tamed
the martial activity of youth. Had he been content
with the calmer and more retiring virtues of the Chri»-
tian, without displaying the dangerous qualifications of
a warrior and a statesmen, he might have escaped the
fatal jealousy of his father, and the arts which were no
doubt employed for his ruin. In his oampaign against
the Barbarians, Crispus had shown himself a worthy son
of Constantine, and his naval victory over the fleet of
Lieinins had completed the conquest of the empire.
The conqueror of Maxeutius and of Licioius, the undia-
puted master of the Roman world, might have been
expected to stand superior to that common iJiiliug of
weak monarehs, a jealous dread of the heir to their
throne. The unworthy fears of Constantine were be-
trayed by an edict inconsistent with the early promise
of his reign. He had endeavoured, soon after hia
accession, to repress the odious crime of delation; a
rescript now appeared, inviting, by large reward and
liberal promise of favour, those informations which he
had before nobly disdained ; and this edict seemed to
betray the apprehensions of the Government, that some
widely ramified and darkly orf!;anised conspiracy was
afoot. But if such eons^iraoy existed, the Government

CilAf. II. CRISFDB — LICINIUS — FAUSTA. 323

refused, by the secrecy of its own proceedings, to en-
lighten the public mind.

Rome itself, and the whole Roman world, heard with
horror and amnzemeut, that io the midst of the eolumu
festival, which was celebrating with the utmost isouiof
splendour the twentieth year of the Emperor's '!"^'
reign, his eldest boh had been suddenly seized, a'"- '
and, either without trial, or after a liurried examination,
had been transported to the shore of Istria, and had
perished by an obscure death. '^ Nor did Crispus fall
alone ; the young Licinius, the nephew of Constantine,
who had been spared after his father's death and vainly
honoured with the title of Ctesar, shared his fate. The
aword of justice or of cruelty, once let loose, raged
against those who were suspected as partisans of the
dangerous Crispus, or as implicated in the wide-spread
conspiracy, till the bold satire of an eminent ofBcer of
state did not scruple, in some lines privately circulated,
to compare the splendid but bloody times with those of
Nero.''

But this was only the first, act of the domestic tragedy ;
the death of the Emperor's wife Fausta, the naihat
partner of twenty years of wedlock, the mother *'"""*■
of his three sui'viving sons, increased the general horror.
81ie was suffocated in a bath, which had been heated to
an insupportable degree of temperature. Many mnlours

° Vict. ICpit. rn ConataDtlao. Eutrop. death o( Crispas. Sozonica, \

lib. I. Zwimiis, iJ. c S9. SidDoiuf, nlolts the notioa of Ihe code

T. EfiA. 8. Of the HClaaiuticid hit- the 4a<th of Ci-iepna with th<

tnriaDs, Philoitor^ui (lib. it. 4) atlri- tioii of CoDstantiiis, admits i

bata! the death of Cri>puB ta the arts I. i. a. 5.

of hi) swptnother. liesdJa » strangs ' The Consnl Albinos,—

, itarj, that Conatactitie was pnlsoced Snlornl anret mcUt iiuli nqn

bj his brolhcra in rerruge for the SuntliEC nnnm™ kiI Smnli

EEMOESB OP CONSTANTINE.

]

were propagated throughout the empire concerning
dark transaction, of which the real secret was no doi
coEcealed, if not in the bosom, within the palace <rf
Constantine. The awful crimes which had thrilled the
scene of ancient tragedy, were said to have polluted the
imperial chamber. The guilty step-mother had either,
like PhEedra, revenged the insensibility of the youthful
Crispus by an accusation of incestuous violence, or the
crime, actually perpetrated, had involved them both in
the common guilt and ruin. la accordance with the
former story, the miserable Constantine had discovered
too late the machinations which had stained his hand
with the blood of a guiltless son : in the agony of his
remorse he had fasted forty days ; he had abstained
from .the use of the bath; he had proclaimed his o\
guilty precipitancy, and the innocence of his eon,
raising a golden statue of the murdered Crispus,
the simple but emphatic inscription, " To my unfc
tunate son." The Christian mother of Constantii
Helena, had been the principal agent in the detecl
of the wicked Fausta ; it was added, that, besides
imnatural passion for her step-son, she was found
have demeaned herself to the embraces of a slave.

It is dangerous to attempt to reconcile with prol
bility these extraordinary events, which so often suri
in the strange reality of their circumstances, the wild<
fictions. But, according to the ordinary course of things'
Crispus would appear the victim of political rather than
of domestic jealousy. The innocent Licinius might be
an object of suspicion, as implicated in a conspiracy
against the power but not against the honour of Con-
stantine. The removal of Crispus opened the succession
of the throne to the sons of Fausta. The passion of
maternal ambition is much more consistent with hni

Cais. IL PAGAS ACCOTnTT Of THIS ETENT.

nature tlian the incestuous love of a step-mother, ad-
Tanced in life and with many children, towarda her
husband'e Bon. The guilt of compassing the death of
Crispus, whether by the atrocious accusations of a
Fhsedra, or by the more vulgar arta of common court
intrigue, might come to hght at a later period ; and the
indignation of the Emperor at having been deluded into
the execution of a gallant and blameless son, the desire
of palliating to the world and to hia own conscience his
own criminal and precipitate weakness by the most
unrelenting revenge on the subtlety with which he had
been circumvented, might madden him to a second act
of relentless barbarity."

But at all events the unanimous consent of the Pagan ,
and most of the Christian authorities, as well ffo ac-
as the expressive silence of Eusebius, indicates event,
the unfavourable impression made on the public mind
by these household barbarities. But the most remark-
able circumstance is, the advantage which was taken
of this event by the Pagan party to throw a dark
shade over the conversion of Coustantine to the Chris-
tian religion. Zoaimus has preserved tliis report; but
there is good reason for supposing that it was a rumour,
eagerly propagated at the time by the more desponding
TOtaries of Paganism.' In the deep agony of remorse,
Constantine eagerly inquired of the ministers of the
ancient religions, whether their lustrations could purity
the soul from the blood of a son. The unaccommodating
priesthood acknowledged the inefficacy of their rites in
B case of snch inexpiable atrocity," and Constantine

• Gibbon tuu Uirown doubts on the I of Zoaimas.

tual drath of Fannti, Tol.lil.p. 110. i Aomrdiiig to SoionwD, whuw

' Stt U«7ne'i HDta on tlii> punge { nuraUve, aa Biyne obacrrra ',naM of

o26

BEMOESE OF OONSTAwTINB.

BooxaC

remained to struggle with the unappeased and nn-
atoned horrors of conscience. An Egyptian, on his
journey from Spain, passed through Eome, and, being
admitted to the intimacy of some of the females about
the court, explained to the Emperor that the religion of
Christ possessed the power of cleansing the soul from
ail sin. From that time Constantine placed himseif
entirely in tlie hands of the Christians, and abandoneil
altogether the sacred rites of his ancestors. ]^h

If Constantine at this time had been long an aTow^jj^l
and sincere Cliristian, this story falls to the ground ft V
but if, according to my view, there was stilt something of
ambiguity in the favour shown by Constantine to Chris-
tianity, if it still had something rather of the sagacious
statesman than of the serious proselyte, there may be
some slight groundwork of truth in this fiction. Con-
stantine may have relieved a large portion of his sub-
jects from grievous oppression, and restored their plun-
dered property ; he may have made munificent donations
for the maintenance of their ceremonial ; he may have
permitted the famous Labarum to exalt the courage of his
Christian soldiery ; he may have admitted their represen-

allua a

1 the E

cleni

filinl bloixt.
the legal cpremonial of Paganism, nc
tbe prJDi-Jples of the later Platonifu
could aflbrd any hop« or pardon t
the mucdenr. Juliw, ipeaking t
CoiutaDtiDe !'Jn Osar.), isdaualt

th«

divine fo^rei

~ S3 with which the Pagan

. paitj judgal of tlie masiirEs of CoB-
e tOin whidi
La hiB edior. discouragia^

divii

"Hair

railed I

wir

le adTontagn of diviuatioa, wbicb
had pTKlictfd hia awn Eplandid boo-
oatea, ha was jcoloas lot the pn>>
phetlc art should be equally prodigal
glorloai promiAt to olhan."

REMOaSE OF CONSTANTINE.

327

tatives to his court, endeavoured to alluy tbeir fierce feuda
in Africa, and sanctioned by bis presence the meeting of
the Council of Niciea to decide on the new controversy
which began to distract the Christian world; he may
have proclaimed himself, in short, the worshipper of
the Christiana' God, whose favourites seemed likewise
to be those of fortune, and whose enemies were devoted
to ignominy and disaster {such is his constant lan-
guage) : '' but of the real character and the profoimder
truths of the reUgion he may still have been entirely,
or, perhaps, in some degree disdainfully, ignorant ; the
lofty indifferentiam of the Emperor predominated over
the obedience of the convert towards the new iaith.

But it was now the man, abased by remorse, by the
terrors of conscience, it may be by supwetitious horrors,
who sought refuge against the divine Nemesis, the
ayeoging FurieB, which haunted his troubled spirit. It
would be the duty as well as tlie interest of an influen-
tial Christian to seize ou the mind of the royal proselyte,
and, while it was thus prostrate in its weakness, to enforce
more atrongly the perscmal sense of religion upon the
afflicted soul. And if the Emperor was understood to
have derived the slightest consolation under this heavy
burden of conscious guilt from the doctrines of Chris-
tianity — if his remorse and despair were allayed or
assuaged — nothing was more likely than that Faganism,
which constantly charged Christianity with receiving
the lowest and most depraved of mankind among its

* It !• remarkiiMe in rU die pro-
gluiuBtiona imd documeoto whiuh
Eunbins asugni to Caiitliuitioe, booig
rrtD -wiiUea bjr hi> awn hud, how
almost eicluiively he dwells dd thia
worldly ■uperiority of the God ndared

b<r the Chtietiima over tbooe of the
Haithen, and the viiible temporal nd-
vantagfs which attend on the worship
of Chriattalty. His own Tietoiy and
the (JiaisKn of his fliflnis sre his
concliuive evidenced of ChrutiimitT.

328 REMORSE OF C0N8TANTINE.

[iroselytes, Bhould affect to assume the tone of si
moral dignity, to compare its more imcompromisiiig
moral austerity with the easier terms on which Chris-
tianity appeared to receive the repentant siimer. In
the bitterness of wonnded pride and interest at the loss
of an imperial worshipper, it would revenge itself by
ascribing liis chaoge exclusively to the worst hour of
Ins life, and to the least exalted motive. It is a greater
difttculty, that, anhsequent to this period, the mind of
C'onstantine appears to have relapsed in some degree to
its imperfectly unpaganised Christianity. His conduct
became ambiguous as before, floating between a decided
bias in favour of Christianity, and an apparent design
to harmonise with it some of the lesa offensive parts of
Heathenism. Yet it is by no means beyond the
common inconsistency of human nature, that, with the
garb and uttitade, Conetantine should throw off the
submission of a penitent. His mind, released from its
burthen, might resume its ancient vigour, and assert its
haughty superiority over the religious, as welt as over
the civil allegiance of his subjects. A new object of
ambitioa was dawning on his mind ; a new and absorb-
ing impulse was given to all his thoughts — the founda-
tion of the second Rome, the new imperial city on the
Bosphorus,

Nor was this sole and engrossing object altogether
unconnected with the sentiments which arose out of
this dark transaction. Borne had become hateful to
Constantino ; for, whether on this point identifying her^
self with the Bagan feeling, and taunting the crime of
the Christian with partial acrimony, or pre-surmising
the design of Constaiitine to reduce her to the second
city of the empire. Home assumed the imwonted libertt
of insulting the Emperor. The pasquinade which coi

Ciup. n. INSOLENCE OF THE POPULACE. 329

pared his days to those of Nero was affixed to the gates
of the palace ; and so galling was the insolence of the
populace, that the Emperor is reported to have con*
suited his brothers on the expediency of calling out his
guards for a general massacre. Milder councils pre-
vailed ; and Constantine took the more tardy, but more
deep-felt, revenge of transferring the seat of empire
from the banks of the Tiber to the shores of the
Busphoroa*

FOCMDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE

CHAPTER III.

Fonndation of ConetRntinople.

The fonudation of Constantinople marks one i
Foimnuun great periods of change in the annals of the
Dopie world. Both its immediate " and its remoter

connexion with the history of Christianity, are among
those results which contributed to its influence on the
destinies of mankind. The removal of the seat of
empire irom Kome might, indeed, at first appear to
strengthen the decaying cause of Paganism. The
senate became the sanctuary, the aristocracy of Kome, in
general, the unshaken adherents of the ancient religion.
But its more remote and eventual consequences were
favourable to the couaolidation and energy of the Chris-
tian power in the AVest. The absence of a secular com-
petitor allowed the Papal authority to grow up and to
develope its secret strength. By the side of the im-
perial power, perpetually contrasted with the pomp
and majesty of the throne, constantly repressed in his
glow but steady advancement to supremacy or obliged
to contest every point with a domestic antagonist, the
Pope would hardly have gained more political import-
ance than the Patriarch of Constantinople. The extinc-
tion of the Western empire, which indeed had long held

■ Conrtuitiius stitei the property I so snyi Libaniu!
■ome of tht tsmples, for the upensc Tijt xari

milding ConEtBnlJnDple, but did iitlrTiftr

change tbt eatobliilHd wonhipj |

Chap. III. FATOUHABLE TO uhRISTJANITT. 331

its court in Milan or Eavennft rather than in the ancient
capital, ite revival only heyond the Alps, left all the
awe which attached to the old lloman name, or which
followed the posBeasion of the imperial city, to gather
round the tiara of the Pontiff, In any other city the
Pope would in vain have asaerted his descent from
St Peter; the long habit of connecting together the
name of Rome with supreme dominion, silently co-
operated in establishing the spiritual despotism of the
Papal See.

Even in ita more immediate influence, the rise of
Constantinople was favourable to the progress lavounbieta
of Christianity. Itremoved the seat of govern- ctri.«aniij..
meut from the presence of those awful temples to which
ages of glory had attached an inalienable sanctity, and
with which the piety of all the greater days of the Re-
public had associated the supreme dominion and the
majesty of Rome. It broke the last link which combined
tlie pontifical and the imperial character. The Emperor
of Constantinople, even if he had remained a Pagan,
would have lost that power which was obtained over
men's minds by his appearing in the chief place in all
the religious pomps and processions, some of which were
as old as Rome itaelf. The senate, and even tlie people,
might be transferred to the new city; the deities of
Some clung to their native home, and would have
refused to abandon their ancient seats of honour and
worship.

Constantinople arose, if not a Christian, certainly not
a Pagan city. The new capital of the world canunu.
had no ancient deities, whose worship was in- cSleiiin
separably connected mth her more majestic ""'■
buildings and solemn customs. The temples of old Byzan-
tium had fallen with the rest of the Dublic edifii'.es. when

BUILDING OP THE CITY.

tOKll^^^

Severus, in liia vengeance, razed tlie rebellions city to
the gronnd. Byzantium had resumed BufEicient strength
and importance to resist & siege by Constantine himself
in the eorher part of his reign ; and some temples had
reappeared during the reconstruction of the city.'' The
fanes of the Sun, of the Moon, and of Aphrodite, were
permitted to stand in the Acropolia, though deprived of
their revenues/ That of Castor and Pollui formed part
of the Hippodrome, and the statues of those deitiea wIi^^^h
presided over the games stood undisturbed till the reign-^l
of Theodoaius the Younger.*'

Once determined to found a rival Rome on the shores
Baiidingaf of the Bosphorus, the ambition of Constantine
[teciw- was absorbed by this great object. No expense
was spared to raise a city worthy of the seat of empire—^
no art or influence to collect inhabitants worthy of sm "
a city. Policy forbade any measure which would alienate"
the minds of any class or order who might add to the
splendour or Bwell the population of Byzantium, and
policy was the ruling principle of Constantine in the
conduct of the whole transaction. It was the Emperor
whose pride was now pledged to the accomplishment of
his scheme with that magnificence which became the
second founder of the empire, rather than the exclusive^
patron of one religious division of his subjects. Ci
stantinople was not only to bear the name, it was
wear an exact resemblance of the elder Rome. The^
habitations of men, and the public buildings for businesH,j

the
jive C

I toS

rhsS

esB,S

k There is a long list of these tem- I Paschal Chroiiicle, tcltrrad to by V.
pl« in V, HiuuniBr's Constantinopel Hammer, ujt nothiag of thdr con-
uod die BofporUB, i. p. 1S9, jic. j renioa into churchra Ij Ci
Manj of them are mined in Gjlliut, j ■ Mnlala,
hot it don not tean deir at t ' '
period tbcy aoied to eiiib

BUILDING OF THE CITY.

333

for convenience, for amusement, or for eplendoor, de-
manded the first care of the founder. The imperial
palace arose, in its dimensions and magnificence equal
to that in the older city. The skill of the architect waa
lavished on the patrician mansions, which were so faith-
fully to represent to the nohlee, who obeyed the imperial
invitation, the dwellings of their ancestors in the ancient
Capitol, that their wonderuig eyes could scarcely believe
their removal ; their Penates might seem to have fol-
lowed them.* The senate-house, the Augusteum, waa
prepared for their counsels. For the mass of the people,
markets and fountains and aqueducts, theatres and hip-
podromes, porticoes, basilicie, and forums, rose with the
rapidity of enchantment One class of buildings alone
was wanting. If some temples were allowed to stand, it
is clear that no new sacred edifices were erected to excite
and gratity the religious feelinge of the Pagan party,
and the building of the few churches which are ascribed
to the pious munificence of Cortstantine, seems slowly
to have followed the extraordinary celerity with which
the city was crowded with civil edifices.' A century
after — a century during which Christianity had been

itreipi.

* Sraamen. ii. 3. Id the u
bowtva, TheiaiBllui Bilmiti
luetaflce of Ihe lenstors to remove :

liqS'irriow Sia^iptir. Oral. Prolrep,
p. 57.

' or the churchea bnilt bj Cdd-
■tBDtme, one waa iloliaited to S,
Sophia <tbi! >Dpreiiie WiidDin), the
otJier to Eirene, Petice: a philosophic
Pagan might have admitted the pro-
prietj of dedicating templfd to «ich
of Ihofe nbstmct miiaet. The conie-

etatlag t* individuul uiuti iraa of a
later period. Soi. li. 3. The ancient
Temple of Penes, which aflerwardi
formed part of the Simta Sophia, vraf
appropHfltiilf tmniforiDed into a Chris-
tlao church. The Church of the
Twelve Apoatlu appeara, fnJm Euw-
bins (Vil. Const, ir, 68), to hjie
been built in the last year of Conttan-
tine'ii reign and of hi> life, aa a burial
place for himwlr sad hta familj,
Sutomtn, indeei, saya that Conatan-
tine emliellishcd (he city woAAoIt iciil
t^fyltrroit tittrrfptots offrtuT.

334 CEEEMOSUL OF THE FOUNDATION". Booc^|

recognised as the religion of the empire— the metropolis
contained only fourteen churches, one for each of its
wards or divisions. Yet Constantine hy no means neg-
lected those measures which might connect the new city
with the religious feeliuga of mankind. Heaven inspired,
commanded, sanctified the foundation of the second
Eome. The ancient ritual of Roman Paganism con-
tained a solemn ceremony, which dedicated a new city
to the protection of the Deity.

An imperial edict arkuounced to the world that Con-
cemnoniEi stantine, by the command of God, had founded
auim. the eternal city.^ When the Emperor walked,
with a spear in hia hand, in the front of the stately
procession which was to trace the boundaries of Con-
stantinople, the attendants followed in wonder hia still
advancing footsteps, which seemed as if they never
would reach the appointed limit. Ooe of them, at
length, humbly inquired how much farther he proposed
to advance. " When he that goes before me," replied
the Emperor, " shall stop." But, however the Deity
might have intimated his injunctions t-o commence the
work, or whatever the nature of the invisible guide which,
as he declared, tlius directed hia steps, this vague appeal
to the Deity would impress with the same respect all
his subjects, and by its impart.ial ambiguity offend none.
In earlier times the Pagans would have bowed down in
homage before this manifestation of the nameless tutelar
deity of the new city ; at the present period they hat!
become familiarised, as it were, with the concentration
of Olympus into one Supreme Being, i" The Chrititians

* On the old eereiron)- ai fonnding I Zoiiniuii f
atj, me Ifartnng, Rdigiun der langungE
imer, i. lU. Hesth^n :

' The ((pretaion of the Psgin | Bpax^', '

by Om

Cb&f. m.

SPLENDOUR OF THE CITY.

would of coui-se assert the exclusive right of the one tnio
God to this appellation, and attribute to his inspiration
and guidance every important act of the Christian Em-
peror.'

But if splendid temples were not erected to the de-
caying deities of Paganism, their images were set up,
naingled indeed with other noble works of art, in all the
public places of Constantinople. If the inhabitants were
not encouraged, at least they were not forbidden, to pay
divine honours to the immortal sculptures of Phidias
and Praxiteles, which were brought from all quarters to
adorn the squares and baths of Byzantium. The whole
Koman world contributed to the splendour of Constanti-
nople. The tutelar deities of all the cities of Greece
(their influence of course much enfeebled by their re-
moval from their local sanctuaries) were assembled:
the Minerva of Lyndua, the Cybele of Mount Dindymus
(which was said to have been placed there by the Argo-
nauts), the Muses of Helicon, the Amphitrite of Rhodes,
the Pan conaeci-ated by united Greece after the defeat
of the Persians, the Delphic Tripod. The Dioscuri
overlooked the Hippodrome. At each end of the prin-
cipal forum were two shrines, one of which held the
statue of Cybele, but deprived of her lions and her
hands, from the attitude of command distorted into that
of a Bupphant for the welfare of the city : in the otlier
was tlie Fortune of Byzantium.*^ To some part of the

He ii ipeikii^ of u oracle, in vhicb
Uie Pn^na pnttj dncavered a predic-
tion nf thp future ghrj of BjmDtiani.
One letter less woald nuke it tfae len-
teiice of ■ Christian ajipealing to [ii-o-
pheey.

' At ■ later pi'rloJ the Virgin Mnvv

obtfuned the hanonr of baving intfxred
the foundation of Constantinople, of
IV hich she became the tn Wiarjf gnantiin,
I had sJmittt written. Deity.

* Euaeb. Vit, Const, lil. 54. Stto-
meu, ii. 5. CoJiniiB, de Oiig. C. f.
30-Ca. to B™u. i. 3D.

336 DEDICATION OF THE CITY.

Christian community thie might appear to be leadin
as it were, the gods of Paganism in triumph ; the Pa£
were shocked on their part by their violent removal from
their native fanes, and their wanton mutilation. Yet
the Christianity of that age, in full possession of the
mind of Constantine, would sternly have interdicted the
decoration of a Christian city with these idols ; the work-
manship of Phidias or of Lysippus would have found no
favour, when lavished on images of the Deemoua (
Paganism,

The ceremonial of the dedication of the city"
attended by still more dubious circumstances. After i
most splendid exhibition of chariot games in the Hip(
podrome, the Emperor moved in a magnificent <
through the most public part of the city, encircled 1
all his guards in the attire of a religious ceremonial &
leftring torches m their hands. The Emperor hin
held a golden statue of the Fortune of the city in 1
hands. An imperial edict enacted the annual celebia
tion of this rite. On the birthday of the city the gildec
statue of himself, thus bearing the same golden i
of Fortune, was annually to he led throi^h the Hippt
drome to the foot of the imperial throne, and to reoeiff
the adoration of the reigning Emperor. The lingerin
attachment of Constantine to the favourite auperstitioa
of his earlier days, may he traced on still better authority

oil

i pereaade his iradera

■8 were Bet up in th.

eidle the general

lus ndniits with Utr

were mutilaled fhnn

In the indent reli-

mpve Socr. Ec. Hut.

me Udm are worth

a bj Chria

reading), the descriptiou

of ihe s
gjmniulum of Zeuiippiu. Deiphabi

fine. Thire an bIhi. in

BBsemblage, Venn* (Cfpris),

~9SBr, Plato, Herculo, aud

nlholog. Palat. i. 37.

" Piuchal Chronicle, p 521

CBiP. 111. STATUE OF CONSTANTINE. 33?

The Grecian worahip of Apollo had been exalted into
the Oriental veneration of the Sun, as the visible repre-
sentative of the Deity; and of all the statues which
were introduced from different quarters, none wei'e
received with greater honour than those of Apoilo. In
one part of the city stood the Pythian, in the other the
Bminthian deity." The Delphic Tripod, which, accord-
ing to Zosimus, contained an image of the god, stood
apon the column of tlie three twisted serpents, supposed
to represent the mythic Python. But on a still loftier,
the famous pillar of porphyry, stood an image eutoeor
in which (if we are to credit modern authority, *^™"""'"'-
and the more modern our authority, the less Kbely is it
to have invented so singular a statement) Constantiae
dared to mingle together the attributes of the Bun, of
Christ, and of himself." According to one tradition, this
pillar was based, m it were, on another superBtition.
The venerable Palladium itself, surreptitiously conveyed
from Rome, was buried beneath it, and thus transferred
the eternal destiny of the old to the new capital. The
pillar, formed of marble and of porphyry, rose to the
height of 120 feet. The colossal image on the top was
that of Apollo, either from Phrygia or from Athens.
But the head of Constantino had been substituted for
that of the god. The sceptre proclaimed the dominion
of the world, and it held in its hand the globe, em-
blematic of universal empire. Around the head, instead
of rays, were fixed the nails of the true cross. Is this
Paganism approximating to Christianity, or Christianity
degenerating into Paganism? Thus Constantine, as

i ' ■ Eunb. Vit. ConM. ii<. M. I potus, i. 162- Fhilwtcrglus »)'>

• Th* nuUur of the Aatiq. Cen- Uiet Ibe Christiuu wanhipped thl>
(tautinap. spud Bandun. See Voa Image, ii. IT.
Bomnier, ConaUutinapd uuil tliti Bos- |

VOL. II. '■-

336 PROGRESS OF CHfilSTIASlTY. Boos MP

fotmder of the new capital, migbt appear to some atill
to maintain the impartial dignity of Empei-or of the
world, presiding with serene indifference over the various
nations, orders, and religious divisions which peopled his
dominions ; admitting to the privileges and advantages
of citizens in the new Rome all who were tempted to
make their dwelling arotind her seat of empire.

Yet, even diiring the reign of Consfantine, no doubt,
Progres, or the triumphant progress of Christianity tended
Christianity, ^ efface or to obscure these lingering vestiges
of the ancient religion. If here and there remained s
ehrine or temple belonging to Polytheism, built in pro-
portion to the narrow circuit and moderate population
of old Byzantium, the Chi-istian churches, though far
from numerous, were gradually rising, in their dimen-
sions more suited to the magnilicence and populousness
of tbe new city, and in foim proclaiming the dominant.
faith of Constantinople. The Christians were most
likely to crowd into a new city ; probably their main
strength still lay in the mercantile part of the com-
munity : interest and rehgion would combine in urging
them to settle in this promising emporium of trade,
where their religion, if it did not reign alone and ex-
clusive, yet maintained an evident superiority over its
decaying rival. Those of tlie old aristocracy who were
inclined to Christianity, would be much more loosely
attached to their Koman residences, and would be most
inclined to obey the invitation of the Emperor, while
the Ifti^e class of the indifferent would follow at the
same time the religious and political bias of the sove-
reign. Where the attachment to the old religion was
BO slight and feeble, it was a trifling sacrifice to ambition
or intflrest to embrace the new; particularly whei«
there was no splendid ceremonial, no connexion of tl

THE AMPHITHEATRE. 339

priestly office witli tlie higher dignity of the 8ta(«;
nothing, in short, which could enlist either old reve-
rential feelings, or the imagination, in the cause of
Polytheism. The sacred treasures, transferred from
the Pagan temples to the Christian city, sank more and
more into national monuments, or curious remains of
antiquity; their religions significance was gradually
forgotten ; they became, in the natural process of
things, a mere collection of works of art.

In other respects Constantinople was not a Roman
city. Anamphitheatre, built on the restoration ■n.eAnjpbi.
of the city after the siege of Severus, was per- "«*'"■
mitted to remain, but it was restricted to exhibitions of
wild beasts ; the first Christian city was never disgraced
by the bloody spectacle of gladiators.'' There were
theatres indeed, but it may be doubted whether the
noble religious drama of Greece ever obtained popularity
in Constantinople. The chariot race was the amuse-
ment which absorbed all others ; and to this, at first, as
it waa not necessarily connected with the Pagan worship,
Christianity might be more indulgent How this taste
grew into a passion, and this passion into a frenzy, the
later annals of Constantinople bear melancholy witness.
Beset with powerful enemies without, oppressed by a
tyrannona government within, the people of Constan-
tinople thought of nothing but the colour of their faction
in the Hippodrome, and these more engrossing and

■> An edict of CouitiuiUiie (Cod.

nils w«n to be sent to tlie miii

Theod, IV. 12), if it did EM oJlogether

But it would Kem th&t capliv

taken in war might ibll be eiposed

«riolBl th*m to p«ttouhr awiiboik.

"Ci-nenln specUculii in olio d.-ili, et

eihibi lions ruislid same time lung

340 ANCIENT TEMPLES.

maddening contentions even silenced the animosity of
religious dispute.

During the foundation of Constantinople, the iEtuperot
might appear to the Christians to have relapsed ftom
the head of the Christian division of his subjects, into
the common sovereign of the Koman world. In this
respect, his conduct did not ratify the promise of his
earlier acts in the East He had not only restored
Christianity, depressed first by the cruelties of Muximin,
and al'terwarda by the violence of Licinina, but in many
eases he had lent hia countenance, or his more active
assistance, to the rebuilding tlieir churches on a more
imposing plan. Yet, to all outward appearance, the
world was still Pagan : every city seemed still to repose
under the tutelary gods of the ancient religion ; every-
Andait where the temples rose above the buildings of
ianpiiB. j^gjj . jf jjgpp g^(j iijgjg ^ Chriatian churci, in
its magnitude, or iu the splendour of its architecture,
might compete with the solid and elegant fanes of an-
tiquity, the Christians had neither ventured to expel
them from their place of honour, or to appropriate tst
their own use those which were falling into neglect
decay. As yet there had been no invasion but on
opinions and moral iufluence of Polytheism.

The temples, indeed, of Pagan worehip, though sub-
sequently, in some instances, converted to Christian
uses, were not altogether suited to the ceremonial of
Christianity." Tlie Christians might look on their
stateliest building with jealousy — hardly witJi envy.
Whether raised on the huge substructures, and in the

1 Compuv an BicoUmt
Didtna of lighting the anciout

ANCIENT TEMPLES.

masaeB of the older Aaiatic atyle, as at B&albec,
or the original Temple at Jerusaiem ; whether built on
the principles of Grecian art, when the siici'ist of vaultr
iog over a vast buildiag seems to have been unknown ;
or, after the general introduction of the arch by tb»
Komans had allowed the roof to spread out to lunpler
extent, — still the actual enclosed temple was rarely of
great dimensions/ The largest among the Greeks
were hyptethral, open to the sky/ If we judge from
the temples crowded together about the Forum, those
in Kome contributed to the splendour of the city rather
by their number than by their size. The rites of Poly-
tlieism, in fact, collected together their vast assemblages,
rather as spectators than as worshippers.' The altar
itself, in general, stood in the open air, in the court
before the temple, where the smoke might find free
vent, and riae in its grateful odour to the heavenly
dwelling of the gods. The body of the worsbippera,
therefore, stood in the courts, or the surrounding por-
ticoes. 'Ihey might approach individually, and make
their separate libation or offering, and then retire to a
convenient distance, where they might watch the move-
ments of the ministering priest, receive his announce-
ment of the favourable or sinister signs discovered in
the victim, or listen to the hymn, which was the only
usual form of adoration or prayer. However Chris-

' M. Quatmnfire de Quiocj giva

Juno Bt Agrigentum, ll6(Puis) ferCj
Conoord,120;F«stu[n. llOjThewOB,
100; Jnpiteria OlTtnpIm or UinerVB
at Atlwns, 220-S30 ; Jopiler at
AgrigeBtum, 323 ; Sdlnna, S-iU ;
Epbamii, 350 ; ApoUa Dmdymiu at
UilHua, 360. p. 195.

• The real hypffithral lomplrt wpra
to pnrticnlar diviniliea : Jupiter Ful-
garntor, Ccelum, Sol, Luiu.

' Eleudi, the scene of the mywerifs,
of all the ancient timplee hsc! the
largest DBTB jit I

Oiirp

I Hiaaeai Svrifiir

'0;,X«>.

5*2

BASIUCAS.

laanity might admit g;radations in its several claaees of
worshippers, and assign ita separate station according
to the sei, or the degree of advancement in the religions
initiation ; however the penitents might be forbidden,
until reconciled witli the Church, or the catechumens
before they were initiated into the community, to pene-
trate beyond the outer portico, or the first inner divi-
sion in the church ; yet the great mass of a Christian
congregation must be received within the walls of the
building ; and the service consisting not merely in cere-
monies performed by the priesthood, but in prayers, to
which all present were expected to respond, and in oral
instruction, the actual edifice therefore required more
ample dimensions.

In many towns there was another public building, the
BasUica, or Hall of Justice," singularly adapted
for the Christian worship. This was a large
chamber, of an oblong form, with a plain flat exterior weJli J
Tlie pillars, which in the temples were without, stooAfl
witbin the basilica ; and the porch, or that which in the
temple was an outward portico, was contained within the
basilica. This hall was thus divided by two rows of
columns into a central avenue, with two side aisles. The
outward wall was easily pierced for windows, without
damaging the symmetry or order of the architecture. In
the one the male, in the other the female, appellants to
justice waited their turn.* The three longitudinal avenues

■ Le Builique fut I'^ilice des
Dociens, qui convint K U c^lebisiioD
iie sea myaliU'eB. La vaste caprtdtif
df ^n interlaor. Lea dipuionA de am
plan, les grandei ouverlnres, qui in-
trodntnioit it toutoi furti li lumi^n
, U tribiuul qui

derint 1b plan d» celAraDB, tit du
chsar, tout se troara en rapport area
tea piBtiqiKs da DOtima Gulte. Q. d*
Quinoy, p. 173. See Hope on Ardri-
tecture, p. 87.

" Acconiing wBingham (tviii. o. 3\
Ihe women occupied gallctta in « ~ ''

Wei's crossed by one in a ti-ansverse direction, elevated
a few steps, and occupied by the advocates, notaries,
and otliers employed in the public buBinesa. At the
larther end, opposite to the central avenue, the building
swelled out into a semicircular recess, with a ceiling
rounded o£f; it was called absia in the Greek, and in
liatin tribunal. Here Bat the magistrate with his asses-
1, and hence courts of justice were caDed tribunals.
The arrangement of this building coincided with re-
markable propriety with the distribution of a Christian
congregation.*' The sexes retained their separate places
in the aisles ; the central avenue became the nave, so
called from the fanciful analogy of the church to the
ship of St. Peter. The transept, the B^^to, or chores,
was occupied by the inferior clergy and the singers.'
The bishop took the throne of the magistrate, and tlie
superior dei^y ranged ou each side on the seata of the

Before the throne of the bishop, either within or on
the verge of the receaa, stood the altar. This was
divided from the nave by the caucelli, or rails, from
whence hung curtains, which, during the celebration of
the communion, separated the participants from the
rest of the congregation.

As these buildings were numerous, and attached to
every imperial residence, they might be bestowed at
once on the Christians, without either interfering witli
the course of justice, or bringing the rehgious feehuga
of the hostile parties into collision.' Two, the Sessoriau

^ile above the mta. This sort of I oclngDonl form ; Bome in that of n
*epuxtion maj h»e beoi borroiTed cross. See Binghani, 1, Tili. c 3.
•from Ihe Bjnagogue ; profcablj- tho ■ Apost. Coaa. I. ii, «. 57.
jrattice was not uniform. | • Tliei-e wtre sightwn at Kome :

[

144 EELATIVE POSITION OF Book 10,

and the Lateran, were granted to the Boman ChnBtians
by Constantine. And the basilica appeare to have been
the usual form of building in the West, though, besides
the porch, connected with, or rather included within,
the buildiiifr, which became the Narthex, and was occu-
pied by the ratechnmens and the penitents, and in
which stood the piscina, or font of baptism — there was
in general an outer open court, surrounded with colon-
nades. This, as we have seen in the description of the
church at Tyre, was general in the East, wliere the
churches retained probably more of the templar form ;
while in Constantinople, where they were buildings
raised from the ground, Constantme appears to have
followed the form of the basilica.

By the consecration of these basilicas to the purposcB
of Christian worsliip, and the gradual erection of large
fifMn churches in many of the Eastern cities, Chris-
STriaiianiiy tiftuity began to assume an outward form and
t»ni. dignity commensurate with its secret moral

influence. In imposing magnitude, if not in the grace
and magniiieence of its architecture, it rivalled the
temples of antiquity. But as yet it had neither the
power, nor, probably, the inclination, to array itself in
the spoils of Paganism, Ita aggression was still rather
that of fair competition than of hostile destniction. It
was content to behold the silent courts of the Pagan
fanes untrodden hut by a few casual worshippers ; altars
without victims ; thin wreaths of smoke rising where
the air used to be clouded with the reek of liecatombs ;

^hal^Bfl, or places for ^ento^l bufii- ^ze. Oa« is destribed hj the joimger

the Kommi basilicffi Pliny, in which 180 judges were sailed,

IS, the Basil ics Ar^n- with a vast multitude of ad va:ate3 ami

, i. p. 8. BuditoTn. Plin. Epist. i

CruF III. CHEISTI-iNITY AND PAGANISM. 345

the prieaihood murmuring in bitter envy at tlie throngs
which passed by the porticoes of their temples towards
the Christian church. The direct interference with the
freedom of Pagan woi'ship seemB to have betsn confined
to the suppression of those Eastern rites which were
ofTensive to public morals. Some of the Syrian templea
retained the obscene ceremonial of the older Nature-
worship. Religious prostitution, and other monstrous
enormities, appeared under the form of divine adora:
tion. The same rites which had endangered the fidelity
of the ancient Israelites shocked the severe purity of
the Christians. A temple in Syria of the Tompia
female principle of generation, which the later "pp™«*
Greeks identified with their Aphrodite, was defiled by
these unspeakable pollutions; it was levelled to the
ground by the Emperor's command ; the recesses of the
eacred grove laid open to the day, and ihe ritoe inter-
dicted,'' A temple of jEsculapiiis at Mgs, in Cilicia,
fell under the same proscription. The miraculous
cures, pretended to be wrought in this temple, where
the suppliants passed the night, appear to have excited
the jealousy of the Christians; and this was, perhaps,
tiie first overt act of hostility against the established
paganism." In many other places the frauds of the
priesthood were detected by the zealous incredulity of
the Christians; and Polytheism, feebly defended by its
own party, at least left to its fate by the Government,
assailed on all quarters by an active and persevering
enemy, endured affront, exposure, neglect, if not with
the dignified patience of martyrdom, with the sullen
equanimity of indifference.

Palestine itself, and ite capital, Jerusalem, was an

346 CHHISTLAJflTT 4T JEEUSALEM. Bom liL

open province, of which Christianity took entire and
almost undisputed possession. Paganism, in the adja-
cent regions, had built some of its most splendid temples;
4he later Roman architecture at Gerasa, at Petra, and
at Baalhcc, appears built on the massive and enormous
foundations of the older native structures. But in Pa-
lestine Proper it had made no strong settlement.
Temples had been raised by Hadrian, in hia new city,
on the site of Jerusalem. One dedicated to Aphrodite
occupied the spot which Christian tradition or later in-
vention asserted to be the sepulchre of Clirist." The
cbriitianiiy proliibition issued by Hadrian against the od-
sutrnHiiHa. jT^iggion of ^jje Jews into the Holy City, doubt-
less was no longer enforced; but, though not forcibly
depressed by public authority, Judaism itself waned, in
its own native territory, before the ascendancy of CIuib-
tianity.

It was in Palestine that the change which had been
slowly working into Christianity itself, began to assume
a more definite and apparent form. The religion re-
issued as it were from its cradle, in a character, if
foreign to its original simplicity, singularly adapted to
achieve and maintain its triumph over the human
mind. It no longer confined itself to its purer moral
influence; it was no more a simple, spiritual faith,
despising all those accessories which captivate the
senses, and feed the imagination with new excitement.
It no longer disdained the local sanctuary, nor stood
independent of those associations with place, which be-
seemed an universal and spiritual religion. It began to

' This temple wu improUibly sai I Oadriac
hjTe been built OD Ihb spot by I rebellwi
lulrian to insult the ChriiitiiiDs ; but I tisoi.

CliAP. HI, THE HOLT SBFCLCHEE. 347

have its hero-worahip, its mythology ; it began to crowd
the mind with images of a secondary degree of sanctity,
but which enthralled and kept in captivity those who
were not ripe for the pure moral conception of the
Deity, and the impersonation of the Godhead in Jesus

. Christ It was, as might not unreasonably be antici-
pated, a female, the Empress Helena, the mother of
Conatantine, who gave, as it were, this new colouring to
Christian devotion. In Palestine, indeed, where her
pioufi activity was chiefly employed, it was the memory
of the Redeemer himself which hallowed the scenes of
his life and death to the imagination of the believer.
Splendid churches arose over the place of his birth at
Bethlehem ; that of his burial, near the supposed
Calvary ; that of his ascension, on the Mount of Olives,
So far the most spiritual piety could not hesitate to
proceed ; to such natural and iireaistible claims upon its
TeneratioQ no Christian heart could refuse to yield.
The cemeteries of their brethren had, from the com-
mencement of Christianity, exercised a strong influence
over the imagination. They had frequently, in times of

_ trial, been the only places of religious assemblage,
When hallowed to the feelings by the remains of
friends, of bishops, of martyrs, it was impossible to
approach them without the profonndeKt reverence ; and
the transition from reverence to veneration — to adora-
tion — was too easy and imperceptible to awaken the
jealousy of that exclusive devotion due to God and the
Kedeeraer. The sanctity of the place where the Re-
deemer was supposed to have been laid in the sepulchre,
was atill more naturally and intimately associated with
the purest sentiments of devotion.

But the next step, the discovery of the true cross, was
more important. It materialised, at once, the spiritual

CUUECHES BUILT IN PALESTINE.

worship of Chriatianity. It was reported tlirutighont
wondering Christendom, that tradition, or a vieioo,
having revealed the place of the Holy Sepulchre, the
fane of Venua had been thrown down by the Imperial
command, excavations had been made, the Holy Sepul-
chre had come to light, and with the Sepulchre three
crosses, with the inscription originally written by Pilate
iu three languages over that of Jesus. As it was
doubtful to wliich of the crosses the tablet with the in-
scription belonged, a miracle decided to the perplexed
believers the claims of the genuine cross.' The precions
treasure was divided ; part, enshrined in a silver caacv'
remained at Jerusalem, from whence pilgrims constanr ~
bore fragments of the atill vegetating wood to tlie W«
till enough was accumulated iu the different churches to
build a ship of war. Part was sent to Constantinople :
the nails of the passion of Clirist were turned into a bit
for the war-horse of the Emperor, or, according to
another account, represented the rays of the sun around
the head of bis statue.

A magnificent church, called at first the Church of the
ohurcb« Eesurrection (Anastasis), afterwards that of the
piirMUnc Holy Sepulchre, rose on tlie sacred spot hal-
lowed by this discovery, in wliich from that time a
large part of the Christian world has addressed its im-
questioning orisons. It stood in a large open court,
with porticoes on each side, with the usual porch, nave^

• 'Hh aidtcd itala of tbg Chrirtiu
nund, and th« tendencjr to this mste-
rialisatioa ot Cbriiliiinlt;, ma; be
ntinuteil by the undoubting cialulity
with which thof enlertBiaed th« im-
probable noUon that Ihc crosses ven
bulled »ith our Sxriour, not colj

saSenl b

f the buriitl i

Gospels, how siogular a ehange Lo
that of the discnici-y of the cross in
the iEcl«iastlcal hittoriaui ! SDGnii«,i.
17. Swtoiaeii, Li. t. TheoJoi-tC. i. ttL

Chap. HI. CHURCHES BUILT JN PALESTINE.

349

and choir. The nave was inlaid with precious marbles ;
and the roof, overlaid with gold, showered down a flood
of light over the whole building ; the roofs of the aisles
were Ukewise overlaid with gold. At the farther end
arose a dome supported by twelve pillars, in commemo-
ration of the Twelve Apostles; the capitals of these
were silver vases. Within the church was another
court, at the extremity of which stood the Chapel of the
Holy Sepulchre, lavishly adorned with gold and precious
stones, as it were to perpetuate the angelic glory which
streamed forth on the day of the Resurrection.'

Another sacred place was pnrified by the command of
Constantino, and dedicated to Christian worship. Near
Hebron* there was the celebrated oak or terebinth tree of
Mamre, which tradition pointed out as the spot where
the angels appeared to Abraham. It is singular that
the Heathen are said to liave celebrated religious rites
at this place, and to have worshipped the celestial
visitants of Abraham. It was likewise, as usual in the
East, a celebrated emporium of commerce. The wor-
ship may have been like that at the Caaba of Mecca
before liie appearance of Mohammed, for the fame of
Abraham seems to have been preserved among the
Syrian and Arabian tribes, as well as the Jews. It is
remarkable that, at a later period, the Jews and Chris-
tians are said to have met in amicable devotion, and
offered their common incense and suspended their lightg
in the church erected over this spot by the Christian
Emperor.^^

' Eiuebiits, Vit. Constant, iii. 29,
ct seq. ; this seems to be the sense of
the aatbor.

f On Hebron, read Dr. Stanley's
most interesting aoooont of his visit

to the tomb of Abraham with H JELH.
the Prinoe of Wales.

^ Antoninus in Itinerario. Sec
Heinichen, Note on Enseb. Vit. Conirt
Ui. 53.

■ 3S0

THINlTAUlAJi COSTEOVEKaY.

CHAPTER IV.

Trinitarian Controversy.

But it was as arbiter of religious differences, as pis-
Triniurtm siding in their solemn councils, that Constaii-
tnainvenj. jjjjg appeared to the Cliristiaus the avowed
and ostensible head of their community. Immediat^y
after his victory over Liciniua, Constantine had found
the East, no leas than the West, agitated by the dissen-
sions of his Christian subjects. He hatt hoped to allay
the flames of the Donatist schism, by the coneenti^
and imjiartial authority of the Western Chiirchea,
more extensive, if as yet less fiercely agitated, contest dift^.l
turbed the Eastern provinces. Outward peace seemed J
to be restored only to give place to intesline dissen- V
sion. I must reaacend the course of Christian History 1
for sevei-al years, in order to trace in one continQoa9.1l
narrative the rise and progress of the Trinitarian Cos>.'l
troversy, Tliis dissension had broken out soon after '
Constantiue's subjugation of the East; already, before
the building of Constantinople, it had obtained full
possession of the pubhc mind, and the great Council of
Nicfea, the first real senate of Christendom, had passed
its solemn decree. The Donatist schism was but a local
dissension: it raged, indeed, with fatal and implacable
fury ; but it was almost entirely confined to the liraibs
of a single province. The Trinitarian controversy was
the first dissension which rent asunder the whole body
of the Christiana, aiTayed in almost every part of the f

Ohap. IV. TEINITAJtlAN CONTHOVEasT. 361

world two hostile parties in imjjlacable opposition, and,
at a later period, exercised a powerful political influence
on the affairs of the world. How singular an illustration
of tile change already wrought in the mind of man by
the introduction of Christianity! Questions which, if
they had arisen in the earlier period of the world,
would have been limited to a priestly caste — if in
Greece, would have been confined to the less frequented
schools of Athens or Alexandria, and might have pro-
duced some intellectual excitement among the few who
were conversant with the higher philosophy — now agi-
tated the populace of great cities, occupied the councils
of princes, and, at a later period, determined the fata
of kingdoms and the sovereignty of great part of
Europe." It appears still more extraordinary, siBCe
this controversy related to a purely speculative tenet.
The disputauta of either pmty might possibly have
asserted the superior tendency of each system to enforce
the severity of Christian morals, or to excite the ardour
of Christian piety ; but they appear to have dwelt little,
if at all, on the practical effects of the conflicting
opinions. In morals, in manners, in habits, in usages,
in Church government, in religious ceremonial, there
was no distinction between the parties which divided
Cliristendom. The Gnostic sects inculcated a severer
asceticism, and diflered, in many of their usages, from
the general body of the Christians. The Donalist
factions commenced at least with a question of Church
discipline, and almost grew into a strife for political
ascendancy. The Arians and Athanasians first divided
the worid on a pure question of faith. From this

iftlieVliigolhi

352

ORIGIN OF THE CONTROI'EEST.

period we may date the introduction of rigoroiui ur-
ticlea of belief, which required the submissive assent of
the mind tu every word and letter of an established
creed, and which raised the slightest heresy of opinioo
into a more fatal offence against God, and a more
odious crime in the estimation of man, than the woi
moral delinquency or the moat flagrant deviation fr
the spirit of Christianity.

Tlie Trinitarian controversy was the natmut, though
Ori«inofih8 tardy, growth of the Gnostic opinions; it could
aatnivtny. gcan>eiy bg avoided when the esquisite di*
tinctncsB and subtlety of the Greek language
applied to religious opinions of an Oriental c
Even the Greek of the New Testament retained somi
thing of the significant and reverential '
Eastern expression. This vagueness, even phito&oj
cally speaking, may better coarey to the mind th(
mysterious conceptions of the Deity vfhich are beyt
the previuce of reason than the anatomical precision
philosophic Greek. ITie first Christians were content
worsliip, with undefined fervour, tbe Deity as reveali
in the Gospel. They assented to, and repeated with
devout adoration, the words of the Sacred Writings, or
tliose which had been made use of from the Apostolic
age ; but they did not decompose them, or, with nice
aud scrupulous accuracy, appropriate peculiar terms to
each manifestation of the Godhead. It was the great
characteristic of tbe Oriental theologies, as described in
a former chapter, to preserve the primal aud parental
Deity at the greatest possible distance from the rnato*
rial creation. This originated in the elementary
of the irreclaimable evil of matter. In the
day, the more mtional believer labours under
stant dread, if not of mater ialisinir, of huraanisinj

Chap. IT. THE DEITT. 363

taaiih the Great Supreme. A certain degree of indis-
tinctness appears inseparable from tliat vaatneas of con-
ception, wliich ariaes out of the more extended know-
ledge of the works of the Creator. A more expanding
and comprehensive philosophy increasea the distance
between the Omniflc First Cause and the ra^e of man.
All that defines seems to limit and circumscribe the
Deity. Yet in thus reverentially repelling consiant
the Deity into an unapproachable sphere, and mwuibe in-
investing him, as it were, in a nature abso- dovoni>ii»i
Intely unimaginable by the mind ; in thus tie n uy.
secluding him from the degradation of being vulgarised,
if the expression may be ventured, by profane fami-
liarity, or circumscribed by the narrowness of the
human intellect, God is gradually subtilised and subli-
mated into a being beyond the reach of devotional
feelinffs, almost saperior to adoration. There is in
mankind, and in the individual man, on the one hand,
an intellectual tendency to refine the Deity into a
mental conception ; and, on the otlier, an instinctive
counter-tendency to impersonate him into a material,
and, when the mind is ruder and less inteUectual, a
mere human being. Among the causes which have
contributed to the successful promulgation of Christi-
anity and the maintenance of its influence over the
mind of man, was the singular beauty and felicity with
which its theory of the conjunction of the divine and
human nature, each preserving its separate attril^utes,
on the one hand, enabled the mind to preserve inviolate
the pure conception of the Deity, on the other, to ap-
proximate it, as it were, to human interests and sym-
pathies. But this is done rather by a process of
instinctiTe feeling than by strict logical reasoning,
Even here, there is a perpetual stril'e between the iutel

VOL. II. 2 ft.

ibi iSTELLECTUAL AND DEVOTION.iL GmsW^

lect, wliich gimrds with jealousy the divine conception
of the JRedeemer's nature ; and the sentiment, or even
the pasaion, which bo draws down the general notion to
its own capacitiea, so approximates and assimilates it to
itB own ordinary sympatMes, as to absorb the Godhead
n the human nature.

The Gnostic systems had universally admitted the
seclusion of the primal Deity from all intercourse with
matter; that intercourse had taken place, through
a derivative and intermediate being, more or less re-
motely proceeding from the sole fountain of Godhead.
This, however, waa not the part, of Gnosticism which
was chiefly obnoxious to the general sentiments of the
Christian body. Their theories about the malignant
nature of the Creator; the identification of the God of
the Jews with this hostile being; the Doeetism which
asserted the unreality of the Redeemer — these points,
with their whole system of the origin of the worlds and
of mankind, excited the most vigorous and active rfr-
sistance. But when the wilder theories of Gnosticism
began to die away, or to rank themselves under the
hostile standard of Manicheism ; when tlieir curions
eosmogonical notions were dismissed, and the greater
part of the Christian world began to agree in tlie plain
doctrines of the eternal supremacy of God ; the birth,
the death, the resurrection of Christ as the Son of
God ; the effusion of the Holy Spirit, — questions began
to arise as to the pecuhar nature and relation between
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In all the systems a
binary, in most a triple, modification of the Deity waa
admitted. The Logos, the Divine Word or Reason,
might differ, in the various schemes, in his relation to
the parental Divinity and to the universe ; but thei
was this distinctive and ineffaceable character, that S

Cbap. IV. CONCEPTION OF THE DEITY. 356

was the Mediator, the connecting link between the
unseen and unapproachahle world and that of man,
This Platoniam, if it may be so called, was universal.
It differed, indeed, widely in moat systems from fho
original philosophy of the Athenian sage; it had Rf-
qnired a more Oriental and imaginative cast. Plato's
poetry of words had been expanded into tlie poetry
of conceptions. It may be doubted whether Plato him-
self impersonated the Logos, the Word or Reason, of
the Deity ; with him it was rather an attribute of the
Godhead. In one sense it was the chief of these arche-
typal ideas, according to which the Creator framed the
uuiyerse ; in another, the principle of life, motion, an<l
harmony wliich pervaded all things. This Platonism
had gradually abijorbed all the more intellectual class ;
it hovered over, as it were, and gathered under its
wings all the religions of the world. It had already
modified Judaism; it had allied itself with the Syrian
and Mithriac worship of the Sun, the visible Mediatoi',
the emblem of the Word; it was part of the general
Nature worship ; it was attempting to renew Paganism,
and was the recognised and leading tenet in the higher
Mysteries. Disputes on the nature of Christ were
indeed coeval with the promulgation of Christianity.
Some of the Jewish converts had never attained to the
sublimer notion of his mediatorial character; but this
disparaging notion, adverse to the ardent zeal of the
rest of tile Christian world, had isolated this sect. The
imperfect Christianity of the Ebionites had long ago
expired in an obscure comer of Palestine. In all the
other divisions of Christianity, tlie Clirist had more
or less approximated to the office and character of this
Being which connected maaJiind with the Eternal
Father.

2a 2

356 BABELLIANISM. Book m.

Alexandria, the fatal and prolific soil of speculative
contrvrenr controversy, where speculative controversy was
S i^!^ most likely to madden into furious and lasting
***• hostility, gave birth to this new element of dis-

union in the Christian world. The Trinitarian question,
indeed, had already been agitated within a less extensive
sphere. Noetus, an Asiatic, either of Smyrna or
Ephesus, had dwelt with such exclusive zeal on
the unity of the Gk)dhead, as to absorb, as it were, the
whole Trinity into one undivided and undistinguished
Being. The one supreme and impassible Father united
to himself the man Jesus, whom he had created, by so
intimate a cpnjunction, that the divine unity was not
destroyed. His adversaries drew the conclusion, that,
according to this blaspheming theory, the Father must
have suffered on the cross, and the ignominious name
of Patripassians adhered to the few followers of this
onprosperous sect^

Sabellianism had excited more attention. Sabellius
was an African of the Cyrenaic province. Ac-
cording to his system it was the same Deity,
under different forms, who existed in the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost A more modest and unof-
fending Sabellianism might, perhaps, be imagined in
accordance with modem philosophy. The manifesta-
tions of the same Deity, or rather of his attributes,
through which alone the Godhead becomes comprehen-
sible to the human mind, may have been thus suc-
cessively made in condescension to our weakness of
intellect It would be the same Deity, assuming, as it

* I bave TMt thought it nacessary i at Rome, on whicii the Philo^rhamen*
lo rnivT into the various nhades of | has shed new lighL
lff-«ia>dil»i!isitt.e(qpeciall7iBtheChurcli |

SABELLIANISM. 357

wfire, an objective form, so as to come within the scope
of the hmnan mind ; a real differeuce, as regarda the
conception of man, perfect nnity in its subjective exist-
ence. This, however, though some of its terms may
appear the same with the Sabellianism of antiquity,
would be the Trinitarianism of a philosophy unknown at
this period. The language of the Sabelliao. Implied, to
the jealous ears of their opponents, that the distinction
between the persons of the Trinity was altogether un-
real. While the Sabellian party charged their adver-
saries with a Heathen Tritheistic worship, they retorted
by accusing Sabellianism of annihilating the separate
existence of the Son and the Holy Ghost. But Sabel-
lianism had not divided Christianity into two irrecon-
cileable parties. Even now, but for the commanding
characters of the champions who espoused each party,
the Trinitarian controversy might have been limited to
a few provinces, and become extinct in some years.
But it arose, not merely under the banners of men
endowed with tliose abilities which command the mul-
titude ; it not merely called into action the energies of
successive disputants, the masters of the intellectual
attainments of the age, — it appeared at a critical period,
when tlie rewards of success were mote splendid, the
penalty upon failure proportionately more severe. The
contest was now not merely for a superiority over a few
scattered and obscure communities, it was agitated on a
vaster theatre, that of the Roman world ; the proselytes
whom it disputed were sovereigns; it contested the
supremacy of the human mind, which was now bending
to the yoke of Christianity. It is but judging on tite
common principles of human nature to conclude, that
the grandeur of the prize supported the ambition and
inflamed the passions of the contending parties, that

S58 TEINITAEIAKISM. Book lift |

Imman motivea of political power and aggrandiaemeBt
mingled with the more spiritual influences of tbe love aS
truth, and zeal for the purity of religion.

The doctrine of the Trinity, that is, the divine nature
TriniiHiM- of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghosts
'""'■ was acknowledged by all. To each of these

distinct and separate beings, botb parties ascribed the.
iittributes of the Godhead, with the exception of self-i
existeme, which was restricted by the Arians to the-
Father, Both admitted the anti-mundane Being of the
Son and the Holy Spirit. But, according to the Arian,.
there was a time, before the commencement of the ages,
4vhen the Parent Deity dwelt alone in undeveloped,
undivided unity. At this time, immeasurably, incal-
rulably, inconceivably remote, the majestic solitudo'
ceased,' the divine unity was broken by an act of the'
sovereign Will ; and the only begotten Sou, the imaga^
of the Father, the Vicegerent of all the divine power,
the intermediate Agent in oil the long subsequent work
of creation, bt^an to be.''

Such was the question which led to all the evils of
human strife — hatred, persecution, bloodshed. But, how-
ever profoundly humiliating this fact in the history of
mankind, and in the history of Christianity an epoch of
complete revolution from its genuine spirit, it may
fairly be inquired, whether this was not an object mora'
generous, more unselfish, and at least as wise, aa many
I if those motives of personal and national advantage and
aggrandisement, or many of those magic words, which,
embraced by two parties with bhnd and unintelligent
I'liry, have led to the moat disastrous and sanguinary

Chip. IV. TRISITARIANI3U. 369

eventa in the flnnals of man. It might, indeed, liave
been supposed that a profound metaphysical question of
this kind would have been far removed I'rom the passions
of the multitude ; hut with the multitude, and that mul-
titude often comprehends nearly the whole of society, it
is the passion which seeks the object, not the object
which, of its own exciting influence, inflames the passion.
In fact religion was become the one dominant passion of
the whole Christian world ; and everything allied to it,
or rather, in this case, which seemed to coucem its very
essence, could no longer be agitated with tranquillity,
or debated with indifference. The Pagan party, miscal-
culating the inherent strength of the Christian system,
saw, no doubt, in these disputes, the seeds of the destruc-
tion of Christianity. The contest was brought on the
stage at Alexandria;* but there was no Aristophanes,
or rather the serious and unpoetic time could not have
produced an Aristophanes, who might at once show that
he understood, while he broadly ridiculed, the follies of
his adversaries. The days even of a Lucian were past.'
Discord, which at times is fatal to a nation or to a aect>
seema at others, by the animating excitement of rivalry,
the stirring collision of hostile energy, to favour the
development of moral strength. The Christian republic,
like Home when rent asunder by domestic factions,
calmly proceeded in her conquest of the world.

The plain and intelligible principle which united the
opponents of Alius was, no doubt, a vague, and, however
perhaps overstrained, neither uneenerous nor unnatural
jealousy, lest the dignity of the Redeemer, the object of
their grateful adoration, might in some way be lowered

360 ALEXANDER — AEIUS. jtooEin, ,

by the new hypothesis. The divinity of the Saviour
seemed inseparably connected with his eo-equality with
the Father; it was endangered by the elightest eon-
CBseion on this point. It was their argument, that if ]
the Son was not coeval in existence with the Father, he '
must liave been created, and created ont of that which
was not pre-esistent. But a created being must be
liable to mutability ; and it was asserted in the pnblio
address of the Patriarch of Alexandria, that this fatal
consequence had been extorted from an unguarded
Arian, if not from Arius himself, — that it was poeiible
that the Son might have fallen, like the great rebelliona
angel.*

The patriarch of this important see, the metropolis of
AisMnder. Egypt, was named Alexander. It was said that
ALojuuidriB. Arius, a presbyter of acute powers of reasoning,
popular address, and blameless character, had declined
that episcopal dignity," The person of Arius'
was tall and graceful ; his countenance calm,
pale,andsubdued; his manners engnging ; his conversation
fluent and persuasive. He was well acquainted with hu-
man sciences ; as a disputant subtle, ingenious, and fertile
in resources. His enemies add to this character, which
themselves have preserved, that this humble and mor-
tified exterior concealed unmeasured ambition ; that his
simplicity, frankness, and honesty only veiled his craft

. Epiphsn. H^r.

69. lom. i. p.

' Arias is wid. in hi» «irly life, tO

7i;3-7a7.

have beta implicated in the le:! of the

a (the Arian

MeletisnB, which Kerns to ha.e beta

writer). Theodoret

on the other

rather a partj than a sect. They

hud, «}'(, that he

lougtit forward

hii opiiiioDB Iroin ea

y at Ihc pi-omo-

of Lyopoli*. who had btea dcpoeed

tion of Aleiwdcr,

.2. S« th.

for hnvipg sacrificed during the ptr-

Ku:l. 1. 6.

in :»crat. HisL

bccution. Yet this nect or party luted'

atip.iv.

ALEXANDER — ARICS.

and love of intrigue ; that he appeared to stand aloof
from all party, merely that he might guide his cabal
with more perfect command, and agitate and govern the
hearts of men. Alexander was accustomed, whether for
the instruction of the people, or the display of liis own
powers, to debate in public these solemn qneationa on
the nature of the Deity, and the relation of the Son and
the Holy Spirit to the Father. According to the judge-
ment of Arius, Alexander fell inadvertently into the
heresy of Sabellianism, and was guilty of confounding
in the simple unity of the Godhead the existence of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost.''

The intemperate indignation of Alexander at the
objections of Arius, betrayed more of the baf&ed dis-
putant, or the wounded pride of the dignitary, than the
serenity of the philosopher, or the meekness of the
ChristiaD. He armed himself ere long in all the terrors
of his ofSce, and promulgated his anathema in terms
full of exaggeration and violence. " The impious Arius,
the forerunner of Antichrist, had dared to utter his blas-
phemies against the divine Kedeemer." Arius, expelled
from Alexandria, not indeed before his opinions had
spread through the whole of Egypt and Libya," retired
to the more congenial atmosphere of Syria." There, his

AB1U3 IN SYEIA.

vague theory caught the less severely reaaoi
more imaginative minds of the Syrian bishops : ° the
lingering Orientalism prepared them for this kindred
hypothesis. The most learned, the most pious, the most
inBuential, united themaelves to his party. The chief
of these were the two prelates named Eusebius, — out
the ecclesiastical historian, the other, bishop of thtt
important city of Nicomedia. Throughout the EasIS
the controversy was propagated with earnest rapidity.
It was not repressed by the attempts of Licinius to
interrupt the free intercoarse between the Christian
commimities, and his prohibition of the ecclesiastical
synods. The ill-smothered flame burst into tenfold fury
on the re-union of the East to the empire of Constan-
tine. The interference of the Emperor was loudly

tod ■

the ■

ncondle (Ms accDimt of the Thajla
with Qie labile Hnd politic character
which his enemies Httribute to Atiui,
atill loa to the pmlection of such men
as Eusebius of Kicomedia, and the
other Syrian prelates. Arios, lilie-
wiK, composed hymns, in accordsacr
with hia opioiona, to be chanted by

aailoix. thosi

oiked nl

Songs

abounded in the Groet poetrj : each
art and Uado b;ul its song ;' nod AhuB
may have intended no more titin to
turn this jiupulu' practice in favoui-
of ChriBtionity, by aubetitiiting au;red
for pro&ne songs, whkli, of coursa,
would be enibued with hia own
DpinicDS. Might not (he Thalia faire

ci-lebratad modem humoritt

ind preacher ulapled hyuins t(
>f tlie most popular airs, anil declarad
bat the devil ought not Co btn all
? The genera] style of
have been aaft, efienii-

), and popular,
II the ThaUa (m A

fftW Greet. Yet it

jr would hi
b so long.

>, Or. i.

° The bishops of Ptolemais, in the
Pentapolis, and Theonas of ManoariBi,
joined his paity. The femalei win
inclined » hb side. Seven hundred
rirgini of Alexandria, and of th«
Mareotic nonie, owned him for their
spii-itiinl tmeher. Compare the lett*.*
Theodoret, ch. iv.

L-MAP. IT. LETTER OF CONSTANTIKE. 363

demanded to allay the strife which distracted the Chris-
tendom of the East. The behaviour of Constantiiie was
regulated by the most perfect equanimity, or, more
probably, guided by some counsellor of mild and more
humane Christianity: his letter of peace was, Lei„To(
in ita spirit, a model of temper and concilia- >^'"'"*""°^
tion." With profound sorrow he had heard that his
designs for the unity of the empire, achieved by his
victoiy over Licinius, as well os for the unity of tlie
faith, had been disturbed by this unexpected contest.
His impartial rebuke condemned Alexander for unne-
cessarily agitating such frivolous and unimportant ques-
tions, and Arius for not suppressing, in prudent and
respectful silence, his objections to the doctrine of the
Patriarch, It recommended the judicious reserve of the
philosophers, who had never debated such subjects before
an ignorant and uneducated audience, and who differed
without acrimony on such profound questions. He
entreated them, by the unanimous suppression of all
feelings of unhallowed animosity, to restore his cheerful
days and undisturbed nights. Of the same faith, the
same form of worship, they ought to meet in amicable
synod, to adore their common God in peaceful har-
mony, and not fall into discord as to accuracy of ex-
pression on these most minute of questions ; to enjoy
and allow freedom in the sanctuary of their own minds,
but to remain united in the common bonds of Christian
k)va'
It IB probable that the hand of Hoeins, bishop of

» See ttelettBT la Enseb.Vit, Cod- | ipipjitit, /iirdv tJiTM Xoyitriu/O vpoa-
llanl. ii. 64-73. inti, t# tSi Sianilar iiro^^^xfj

fttHa-fuii iv i}^\i\\6t! ixpiBoKoyti- Ii. 71.

364 COUSCIL OF NIC^A. Book Oti

Cordova in Spain, is to be traced in that royal and'
Christian letter. The influence of Hosius was uniformly
exercised in this manner. Wherever the edicts of the
government were mild, conciliating, and humane,
find the Bishop of Cordova, It is by no meani
improbable conjecture of Tillemont, that he was the
Spaniard who afterwards, in the hour of mental agony
and remorse, administered to the Emperor the balm of
Christian penitence.

Hosius was sent to Egypt, as the imperial Commia-
aioner, to assuage the animosity of the distracted diurch.
But religious stril'e, in Egypt more particularly, its nsr
taral and prolific soil, refused to listen to the admonitions
of Christian wisdom or imperial authority. Eusebius
compares the fierce conflict of parties — bialiops with
bishops, people witli people — to the collision of the
Symplegiidea.'' From the mouthB of the Nile to the
Cataracts, the divided population tumultuously disputed
the nature of the divine unity,"

A general Council of the heads of the various Christii
oomKUot communities throughout the Roman empife-
was summoned by the imperial mandate, to
establish, on the consentient authority of assembled
Christendom, the true doctrine on these contested
points, and to allay for ever this propensity to hostile^
tttj™™? disputatioQ. The same paramount tribunal
idbEhh. was to settle definitively another subordinate
question, relating to the time of keeping the Easter fes-
tival. Many of the East«m communities shocked their
more scrupulous brethren by following the calculations,
and observing the eame sacred days with the impioi

ted H

iaiir:'^^

Chap. IV. COUSCIL OF NIC^A. Hco

end abhorred Jews ; for the further we advance in the

Christian history, the estrangement of the Christians
from the Jews darkens more and more into absolute
antipathy.

In the month of May or June (the 20tii ') in the year
325, met the great council of Nicsea, Not half
a century before, the Christian bisliops even
in that city had been only marked as the objects of the
mo^ cruel insult and persecution. They had been
chosen, on account of their eminence in their own com-
munitiea, as the peculiar victims of the stern policy of
the government. They had been driven into exile, set
to work in tlie mines, exposed to every kind of humili-
ation and suffering, from which some hod in mercy been
released by death. They now assembled, under the
imperial sanction, a religious senate irom all parts at
least of the eastern world ; for Italy waa represeoted only
by two presbyters of Rome ; Hosius appeared for Spain,
Gaul, and Britain. The spectacle was altogether new
to the world. No wide-ruling sovereign would ever
have thought of summoning a conclave of the sacerdotal
orders of the different religions ; a synod of philosophera
to debate some grave metaphysical or even political
question was equally inconsistent with the ordinary
usE^es and sentiments of Grecian or Koman society.

The public establishment of poat-horses was com-
manded to afford every facility, and that gratuitously,
for the journey of the assembling bishops." Vehicles or
mules were to be provided, as though the assembly
were an affair of state, at the public charge. At e
laier period, when coancUs became more frequent, tht

FIRST MEEt:NG8 OF THE COXTNCIL. Book 10,1

Heathen liiBtorian complains, tliat tie public service
was impeded, and tte post-lioraes harassed and ex-
hausted, by the incessant journeying to and fro of the
Christian delegates to their councils.' They were sump-
tuously maintained during the sitting at the pubHo
charge.*

Above three bundled bishops were present, presbyter%
Nnmber of deacons, acolj ths without number/ a eousidep-
«iii. able body of laity : but it was the presence of

the Emperor himself which gave its chief weight and
dignity to the assembly. Nothing could so much coa-
firm the Christians in the opinion of their altered po-
eition, or decktre to the world at large the growing
power of Christianity, as this avowed interest taken in
their domestic concerns ; or so tend to raise the im-
portance attached even to the more remote and specu-
lative doctrines of the new faith, as this unprecedented
condtHcension, so it would seem to the Heathen, on the
firtimeet- part of the Emperor. The Council met, pro-
coundi. bably, in a spacious basilica." Eusebiua do*
scribes the scene as himself deeply impressed with its
solemnity. T)ie assembly sate in profound silence;
while the great officere of state and other dignified
persons (tbei'e was no armed guai-d) entered the hall,
and awaited in proud and trembling expectation the

" 1

' Amm. MarMllinns, jri. 16. Bead

■ TheieisalonEnoleinHeiuichen'i

in Stanley'. Eosiem Church the g.Uier.

EuBcbiuB to pram that Ihej did not

iiig «id tha nBTneB Bud chni-aotera of

meet in the palaw, hut ia i. chuidij

Ihe Msembled bishops, p. 109, et siKiq.

Bs though the authoi'ity of thmr pTO-

■ Enseh. iii, 9.

ceedicp depended upon thdr fhux of

r There was ode Wsliop fium Petwa,

assembly. It wa. proUbiy a haalie*.

one {torn Scyt^ia. EuHbluo ttata the

or hall of justice ; the kind of build-

nuiDbu >C 250 ; that in the t»t ii

ing uaually ■Da.le orer by the gomii.

oi, the authority ot Theodorrt, Htid of

ment for the purpoees of ChrlslBM

the i,ainber> uid to have >igiHd the

worahip; and, iu general, thg modd pt

cr«id.

the wlieat Christian edificw.

BEHAVIOPE OP CONSTANTINE.

367

B]Dpearance of tJie Emperor of the world in a Christian
council. Constantine at length entered ; he was splen-
didly attired ; the eyes of the bishops were dazzled by
the gold and precious stones upon his raiment. The
majesty of his person and the modest dignity of his de-
meanour heightened the effect : the whole assembly
rose to do him honour; he advanced to a low golden
seat prepared for him, and did not take liig seat (it is
difficult not to suspect Eusebius of highly colouring the
deference of the Emperor), till a sign of penniesion had
been given by the bishops.* One of the leading prelates
(probably Eusebius the historian) commenced the pro-
ceedings with a short address, and a hymn to Almighty
God. Coiistantiue then delivered an exhortation to
unity in the Latin language, which was interpreted
to the Greek bishops. His admonition seems at first to
have produced no great effect. Hutual accu^atiou,
defence, and recrimination, prolonged the debate.''
Constandne Heemsto have been present during ti^MvioDrot
the greater part of the sittingH, listening with *^'"'*""^-
patience, softening asperities, countenancing those
whose language tended to peace and union, and con-
versing familiarly, in the best Greek he could command,
with the different prelates. The courtly flattery of the
council might attribute to Constantine himself what was
secretly suggested by the Bishop of Cordova, For
powerful and comprehensive as his mind may have
been, it is incredible that a man so educated, and en-
gaged during the early period of his life with military

• Oil rpArtpop fl robt ivuritiwout
hirfiaai. Sve also Socrsln, i. S.
In Theodoret (i. 71, this has gnura
into his humbly aiking

KICENE CREED.

and civil affairs, could have entered, particularly being
imperfectly acquainted with tlie Greek language, into
tliese discussions on religious metaphysics.

The Council sate for rather more than two months.'
Towards the close, Constantiue, on the occasion of the
commencement of the twentieth year of his reign,'' con-
descended to invite the bishops to a sumptuous banquet.
All attended ; and, as they passed through the imperial
guard, treated with every mark of respect, they could
not but call to mind the total revolution in their circum-
stances. Eueebius betrays his transport by the acknow-
ledgment that they could scarcely believe that it was
a reality, not a vision ; to the grosser conception (^
those who had not purified their minds from the mil-
lennial notions, the banquet seemed the actual com-
mencement of the kingdom of Christ.

The Niceoe creed wae the result of the solemn deli-
beration of the assembly. It was conceived

Nkme cnwtU . , , n i< • in.

With some degree of Oriental mdenniteneee,
harmonised with Grecian subtlety of expression. The
vague and somewhat imaginative fulness of its original
eastern terms was not too severely limited by the fine
precision of its definitions. One fatal word broke the
harmony of assent with which it was received by the
whole council. Christ was declared Homoousios, of the
same substance with the Father,* and the undeniable, if

the bbhopi who depued Paal rf

SamoMta, were justified in rejectii^

tlie ward S/umiaiorf bec4Ud« thej

UDtlentood it in a materia] or cott.

. But the privily uUowM

ho had died ia orthoda

wna denied la the Ariio^

IDs : de S^odu, AUunt

Ota. Oper. i. p. 759. It

if this tnaii

1
\

Chap. IV. FIVE RECUSAKTS. 369

perhaps inevitable, ambiguity of this single term, involved
Christianity in centuries of hostility. To one party it
implied absolute identity, and waa therefore only ill-
disgoised SabellianiBm ; to the other it was eBsential to
the co-equal and ro-eval dignity of the three persons in
the Godhead. To some of the Syrian bishops it implied
or countenanced the material notion of the Doity,'' It
was, it is aaid by one rcclesiastieal historian, a battle in
the night, in which neither party could see the meaning
of the other.*

Three hundred and eighteen bishops confirmed this
creed by their signatures ; five alone still con- fwoi™!.
tested the single expression, the Homoousion : '™*
Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Niciea, Theonas ot
Marmarica, Maris of Chalcedon, and Ensebius of Cseaarea,

tire without the unpleasant conviction,

Athnnaaiua der Grosse, b. i. p. 195.

that Athanasiua was determined to

Mohier but dimly sees the Gnostic or

make out the Arians to he in the

Oriental origin of this notion, which

wrong.

lies at the bottom of Arianiam.

' MV« Tip iii'aaBal rhr oUAop

Kol i/oipar (al i.aiii.a.Tov ipiaw, ira-

credit to the judgement and irapsr-

fUriKiv Ti TiBos i-piirraiTeiu. This

tiality of Soeiales : Nunro/iaxio)

is the languHgo of Eusebius.

iaa-l Si S/iw! ircp] rairoii, is

D^i yif iXXiiXaus ^afmvTo KaoSr-

fipn aiKuy i Btis tV -ywnjT^ir

T*i, if- a* itAikovi p>Mrilmfi7r

ktIm, ^iir,^, h-t,3h i,ipa M 5"«-

^Lil^^at,Titf^aaXl^•'■'^■'■ro5■wl.■

o«o-Io« ■,i,<' \Hiy iKKKiyovrts TJJy

Tpii 4«piT0«, Kil T^, ir=p- «6toC

ZnBtXAiBU Kal Mdwo»oS Siiali tiffit-

SlJJllOUpyiai, aoKT nil KTlfo irpjTBS

•ycTiiSai iur)]!' Tout irpO!rS»xo!'^''i"'i

fiiims fiivor iva, nd KoXti tovrttv

vlby Kfll k6yoy. Tvn -roirou (ilmu

iKiXauF, is ixiufovyTft riir trap-

ytroniuav, Ditriat \aiiriv Hal tA

i>v Toii rIoS ToD @taZ- oi Jl iriUiv t^

Tiyra H oJtoE yfy4<rg« !vvy,»^.

^t«ir,>i> Toiii fTt'povi ™^lfo>T«, J»

'EAAimo^iii' tlavjimii ilrrpiwar-

Tf, Kol 'AptlPI Kul i 9ia«s -AlTTi-

TO. C. 23. Add1othffle.abo™all,the

fat. Athan. Orat. il. c. 34. Om-

decaiTe worfa of Arii.j himself, quota]

parfl MOhler (a leamod and glrongly

iQUtmChrUtianitj, i. 131.

ortbodoi Eomui Olholic wfiter).

VOL. li.

970

BAKISHMENT OF ARIOS.

Kuriebiiis of N«M)media and Theognis were baoishi
EiisebiuB of Csesarea, after much heBitation, consent
to subscribe ; but sent the creed into his diocese with a
comment, explanatory of the sense in which he under-
stood the contested word. His chief care was to guard
against giving the slightest countenance to the material
conception of the Deity. Two only williBtood with un-
compromising resistance the decree of the council. The
BmiaiiTnent Bolemn anathema of this Christian senate was
of Aiiia. pronounced against Anus and his adherents ;
they were banished by the civil power ; and they were
especially interdicted from distuibing the peace of Alex-
andria by their presence."

Peace might aeem to be restored; the important
question set at rest by the united authority of the
Emperor, and a representative body which might fairly
jiresume to deliver the sentiments of the whole Christian
world. But tlie Arians were condemned, not convinced ;
discomfited, not subdued.' Hather more than two years
elapsed, eventful in the private life of Conatantine, but
tranquil in the history of the Christian church. The
imperial assessor in the Christian council had appeared
in the West under a different character, as the murderer
of his 8M» and of his wife. He returned to the East,
determined no more to visit the imperial city of the
We^; where, instead of the humble deference with which
all parties courted his approbation, he had l»een unable

fusbage iD dw De SyDodiii,

Oper. 1.)

aocDwd not only tbe Arinn

1 The wrftings of Arius *nd lu*

«ii-AiT«n pnrtj, Euaehiia

AriuB, of BDinetiiing like

If we a« to Wieve SMomen [wbUh

I oDDffsa, that 1 am diundined hi do)

f Ml t^mi irlrpi, ikM

worki ¥,-13 niad« ■ aipittd offcnet,

oMitr. (p. 768, Athaa.

e.. a. Lib. L c. 21. ,

BANISHMENT OF ARim. 371

to close Iiii; ears against the audaoiuus and bitter pasqui-
nade which arraigned his cruelty to his own famOy.
Hia return to the East, instead of overawing the con-
tending factions into that unity, which he declared to be
the dearest wish of his heart, by his own sadden cJiange
of conduct, was the signal for the revival of the fiercest
contentions. The Christian community was aumgEinita
now to pay a heavy penalty for the pride and CuosumiM.
triumph with which they had hailed the interference of
the Emperor in their religious questions. The imperial
decisions had been admitted by the dominant party
when on their own side, to add weight to the decree of
the Council. At least they had applauded the sentence
of banishment pronounced by tte civil power against
their antagonists ; that authority now assumed a different
tone, and was almost warranted, by their own admission,
in expecting the same prompt obedience. The power
which had exiled, might restore the heretic to his place
and station. Court influence, however obtained through
court intrigue, or from the caprice of the ruling sove-
roign, by this fatal, perhaps inevitable step, became the
arbiter of the most vital questions of Christian faith and
discipline ; and thus the first precedent of a
temporal punishment for an ecclesiastical of-
fence was a dark prognostic, and an example, of the
difficulties which wonld arise during the whole history
of Christianity, when the communities, bo distinctly two
when they were separate and adverse, became one by the
identification of the Church and the State. The restora-
tion of a banished man to the privileges of a citizen by
the civil power, seemed to command his restoration to
religious privileges by the ecclesiastical authority.'^

372 EUSEBICa OF NICOMEDIA. Boob IU.'

The A nan party gradually grew into iavour. A'
presbyter of Arian sentiments bad obtained complete
command over the mind of Constantia, the sister of
Conatantine. On her dying bed she entreated the
Emperor to reconsider the justice of the sentence
against that innocent, as she declared, and misrepre-
sented man, Ariiw could not believe the sudden reverse
of fortune; and not till he received a pressing letter
from Constantine himself, did he venture to leave hia
place of exile. A person of still greater importance
was at the same time reinstated in tlie imperial favour.
Eostwui rf Among the adherents of the Arian form, per-
NtomiBU.. jijipg j^jig most important was Euaebiua, Bishop
of Sicomedia. A dangerous suspicion that he had
l»een too closely connected with the interests of Liciniua
during the recent struggle for empire, had alienated the
mind of Coostautiiie, aad deprived EusebiuB of that
respectful attention which he might have commanded
by his station, ability, and experience. With
Theognis, Bishop of Nicjea, his faithful ad-
herent in opinion and in fortune, he had been sent into
exile ; it is remarkable tliat the prelates of these two
sees, the most important in that part of Asia, should
have concurred in these views. The exiled prelates, in
their petition for reinstatement in their dioceses, de-
clared and (notwithstanding the charge of falsehood
which their opponents to the present day do not scruple
to make, would they have ventured in a public docu-
ment addressed to Constantino to misstate a fact so
notorious ?) they solemnly protested that they had not
refused their signatures to the Niceue creed, but only to
the anathema pronotmced against Arius and his fol-
lowers. " Their obstinacy arose not from waut of faith,
but from excess of charity." They returned in triumph

EUBEBIU3 OF NICOMEDIA.

to their dioceses, and ejected the bishops who had been
appointed in their place. No resistance appears to have
been made.

But the Arians were not content with their peaceable
re-establishment in their former station. However
they might attempt to harmonise their doctrines with
the belief of their adversaries, by their vindictive aggres-
sion on the opposite party, they belied their pretenaiona
to moderation and the love of peace. Ensebius, whom
Conataotine had before publicly denounced in no
measured terms, grew rapidly into favour. The com-
plet-e dominion, which from this time he appears to
have exercised over the mind of Consfantine, confirms
the natural suspicion that the opinions of tlie Emperor
were by no means formed by his own independent
judgment, but entirely governed by the Christian
teacher who might obtain his favour. Eusebius seeniB to
have succeeded to the influence exercised with so much
wisdom and temper by Hosius of Cordova. He became
Bishop of Constantinople, and was the companion of
Constantine in his visits to Jerusalem ;" and the high
estimation in which the Emperor held also Eusebius ef
Ciesarea, according to the statements made, and the
documents ostentatiously preserved by that writer in his
ecclesiastical history, could not but contribute to the
growing ascendancy of Arianism. They were in posses-
sion of some of the most important dioceses in Asia ;
they were ambitious of establishing their supremacy in
Autioch.

The suspicious brevity with which Eusebius glides
over the early part of this transaction, which bis peraonai
vanity could not allow him to omit, confirms the state-

j7* COXnUCT OF THE AEUS PBELATES. fl«

ment of their adrersaries, as to the anjujjtifiable m
•.a-na. employed by the Arians to attain this object.

itejutH Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis passed
AaikK^ through Antioch on their way to JeniBalem.
On their return, they §umiiioned Eustathlus,
Bishop of Antioch, whose character had hitherto been
blameless, to answer before a hastily assembled council
iif bishops, on two distinct charges of immorality and
heresy. The unseemly practice of bringing forward
women of disreputable character to charge men of high
fitation in the church with, incontinency, formerly em-
ployed by the Heathens to calumniate the Christians,
was now adopted by the reckless hostility of Christian
faction. The accusation of a prostitute against Eusta-
thius, of having been the father of her child, is said
alterwards to have been completely disproved, Tlie
heresy with which Eustathiua was charged, was that of
Mabellianism, the usual imputation of the Arians against
tlie Trinitarians of the opposite creed. Two Arian
bishops having occupied the see of Antioch, but for a
very short time, an attempt was made to remove Euse-
bius of Csesarea to that diocese, no doubt to overawe by
tlie high reputation of his talents, or to conciliate the
Eustathisn party. Eusebius, with the flattering appro-
bation of the Emperor, declined the dangerous post,
Eustatbius was deposed, and banished, by the imperial
edict, to Thrace ; but the attachment, at least of a large
part, of the Christian population of Antioch refused to
ai'knowledge the authority of the tribunal, or the justice
of the sentence. The city was divided into two fierce
and hostile factions — they were on the verge of civil war;
and Antioch, where the Christians had first formed |
themselves into a separate community, but for tha
vigorous interference of the civil power and the timely

ATllANA3rCS. 375

appearance ol an imperial cotnmisaioner, might have
witnessed the first blood ahed, at least in the East, in a
Christian quarrel.

It is impossible to calculate how far the authority and
influence of the Syrian bishops, with the avowed counte-
nance of the Emperor (for Constantius, the son of Con-
stautine, was an adherent of the Arian opinions), might
have subdued the zeal of the orthodox party. It is
[josaible that, but for the rise of one inflexible and in-
domitable antagonist, the question might either have
sunk to rest, or the Christian worid acquiesced, at least
the East, in a vague and mitigated Arianism.

Athanasius had been raised by the discernment of
Alexander to a station of confidence and dignity.
He had filled the office of secretary to the Alex-
andrian prelate. In the Council of Nic«a he had borne
a dii^tinguiBhed part, and his seiU and talenta det^ignated
him at once as the head of the Trinitarian party. On
the death of Alexander, tlie universal voice of the predo-
minant anti-Arians demanded tlie elevation of Athana-
sius. In vain he attempted to conceal himself, and to
escape the dangerous honour. At thirty years of age,
Athanasius was placed on the episcopal throne
of the see, which ranked with Antioch, and
afterwards with Constantinople, as the most important
spiritual charge in the East."

The imperial mandate was issued to receive Ariua
and his followers within the pale of the Christian com-
munion." But Constantine found, to his astonishment,
thnt an imperial edict, which would have been obeyed

AnsDB luea-tcd thb elntiiHi ' tbc d«1
tipfn csrrieil by the iiTegalar j • Ati
if n ftw liiihope, contiwy lo ' ii. 2-2.

376 cnABGES AGAISST ATHANASICS. Book ULI

in trembling submission from one end of the Romaa

empire to the other, even if it had enacted a complete
political revolutioD, or endangered the property and
privileges of thousands, was received with deliberate and
steady disregard by a single Christian bishop. During
two reigns, Athauasina contested the authority of the
Emperor, He endured persecution, calumny, exile ; hia
life was frequently endangered in defence of one single
tenet ; and that, it may be permitted to say, the most
pui-ely intellectual, and apparently the most remote from
cinrgM the ordinary passions of man : he confronted
AUuiiMiM. martyrdom, not for the broad and palpable
diatinction between Christianity and Heathenism, but
for fine and subtle expressions of the Christian creed.'
He began and continued the contest not for the tolera-
tion, but for the supremacy, of his own opinions.

Neither party, iu truth, could now yield without the
humiliating acknowledgment that all their contest had
been on unimpoilant and imessential points. The
[lassions and the interests, as well as the conscience
were committed in the strife. The severe and uncom-
promising temper of Athanasius, no doubt, gave some
advantage to his jealous and watchful autagouista.
Criminal charges hegau to multiply against a prelate
who was thiB fallen in the imperial favour." They

* I lun not pcraioded, either hy Ic^ol predalon of Athanulut.
the powerful eloqaenca of AthaoBiina * Theodoret meatiDas one of thm

fainuelf, or h; hie able modera apolo- cnitoiDiuj chaises of Jicentiaiunen,

gilt, MBhler, that the opinioni, at in which n iraiiiBO of bad oharactM

le»at,of the Syrian Mmi-Arions, were accawd AthaUBsioi of violating her

to utterly irreconcilaible witb the chastity. Athanaalnswu lilait; while
orthodoiy of AUuuuiBitu, or likely to . one of bis friendi, with anumed JD-

piuducs inch fatal coDBequeaora to the dignatioa demanded. " Do you •eeuM

general tyitfin of Christiitdtj as are nw of this Grime?" "Yes," rqiliol

enoi'tal from tham by the keen theo- the wdoisd. lupposioj; him I '

CHAKGES AGAINST ATHAKASIUS.

377 .

were aasiduouely inetiUed into the ears of Constantine ;
yet the extreme frivolousnesa of some of these accusa-
tions, and the triumphant refutation of the mora
material charges, before a tribunal of his enemies,
establish, undeniably, the unblemished virtue of Athan-
aaius/ He was charged with taxing the city to provide
linen vestments for the clergy ; and with treasonable
correspondence with an enemy of the Emperor. Upon
this accusation he was gummoned to Nicomedia, and
acquitted by the Emperor himselt He was charged, as
having authorised the profanation of the holy vessels,
and the sacred books, in a church in the Mareotis, a
part of his diocese. A certain Ischyras had assumed the
office of presbyter, without ordination, Macarius, who
was sent by Atlianasius to prohibit his officiating in his
usurped dignity, was accused by Ischyras of overthrow-
ing the altar, breaking the cup, and burning the
Scriptures. It is not impossible that the indiscreet
zeal of an inferior may have thought it right to destroy
sacred vessels thus profaned by unhallowed bands. But
from Athanasius himself the charge recoiled without the
least injury. But a darker charge remained behind —
comprehending two crimes, probably in those days

Athanasiufi, of whose persoD she was

mj chaBtitj." L. i. c, 30.

' It ii remsrlnible, boir little f^tiena
U kid OD th« pcrsecDtlooa which
Athanasiufl h occiued of having car-
ried on throQgh the civil authoiitj.
Accuwtua pnet«reH eet de injiuiis,
Tiulentli, capde, alqaeipHftepiscoporum
intemecione. QiiiqnB EtiBm diebui
1 puBchn tynmntco mora
DacibnB dtqtte Comitfbus

ia custodift recludebmit. aliquos vero
Terberibus flsgel Usque veiabaat,
CKlei™ diyereii tormoitia ed oom-
mnnionem ^us saciilegam adigebaut.
Th«e charges neither hbd to hart
been pressed nor refill
imjnrtfuit M the net of
the protest of the Arian bishopi it
Siirdloi, in Hikirii Op^r. Hist. Fragm.

, aa half «
Milege. S«

&78 6TN0D OF TYKE. Book IB,

looked upon with equal abhorrence — magic and murder,
The enemies of Atlianasius produced a human hand eaid
to be that of ArseniuB, a bishop attached to the Meletian
heresy, who had disappeared from Egypt in a suspicious
maimer. The hand of the murdered bishop had been
kept by Atlianasius for unhallowed purposes of witch-
crallt. In vain the emissaries of Athunasius sought for
Arsenius in Egypt, though he was known to be con-
cealed in that country ; but the superior and one of the
monks of a monastery were seized, and compelled to
confess that he was still living, and had lain hid in their
sanctuary. Yet the charge was not abandoned: it
impended for more than two years over the head of
Athanasius,

A council, chiefly formed of the enemies of Athana^
siua, was summoned at Tyre. It was intimated to the
Alexandrian prelate, that, if he refused to appear before
the tribunal, he would be brought by force. Athana-
spod of sius stood before the tribunal. He was arraigned
i.T.. 336. on this charge ; the hand was produced. To
the astonishment of the court, Athanasius calmly de-
manded whether those present were acquainted with
the person of Arsenius ? He had been well known to
many. A man was suddenly brought into the court with
liis whole person folded in liis mantle. Athanasius un-

covered the head of the witness. He was at once :

'ecog-

uifled as the murdered Arsenius, Still the severed hand
lay before them, and the adversaries of Athanasius
expected to convict him of having mutilated the victim
of his jealousy. Athanasius lilted up the mantle on one
side, aud showed the right hand ; he lifted up the other, |
and showed the left In a calm tone of sarcasm he j
observed, that the Creator had bestowed two hands on J
man ; it was for his enemies to explain how Arsenitttfl

'. IV. ATHAXASIUS IK COSSTAXTIXOPLE. 379

possessed a third.' A fortunate accident had
brought Arsenius to Tyre ; he had been discovered by
the friends of Athanasiua. Though he denied his name,
he was known by the bishop of Tyre ; and this dramatic
scene had been arranged as the most effective means of
exposing the malice of the prelate's enemies. His dia-
comflted accusers iled in the confusion.

The implacable enemies of Athanasius were con-
etrained to fall back upon the other exploded charge, the
profanation of the sacred vessels by Macarius. A com-
mission of inquiry had been issued, who conducted
themselves, according to the statement of the frieuds of
Athanasius, with the utmost violence and partiality.
On their report, the bishop of the important city of
Alexandria was deposed from his dignity. But Athana-
sius bowed not beneath the storm. He appears to have
been a master in what may be called, without disrespect,
theatrical effect. As the Emperor rode through Aihsnsmn
the city of Constantinople, he was arrested by onopie.
the sudden appearance of a train of ecclesiastics, in the
midst of which was Athanasiua The offended Em-
peror, with a look of silent contempt, urged his horse
onward. " God," said the prelate, with a loud voice,
"shall judge between thee and me, since thou thus
espousest the cause of my calumniators. I demand only
that my enemies be summoned and my cause heard in
the imperial presence." The Emperor admitted the
justice of his petition ; the accusers of Athanasius were
commanded to appear in Conataotinople. Six of them,
including the two Eusebii, obeyed the mandate.

But a new charge, on a subject skilfully chosen to
awaken the jealousy of the Emperor, counteracted the

DEATH OF BOrATER.

influence wbicli might have been obtained by the
Km ksom,- quence or the guiltlessness of Athanaains.
"™^ is remarkable that an accusation of a very

similar nature should have caused the capital punishment
of the most distinguished among the Heathen philosophic
party, and the exile of the moat eminent Christian pre-
late. Constantinople entirely depended for the supply
of com upon foreign, importation. One-half of Africa,
including Egypt, was assigned to the maintenance of
the new capital, while the Western division alone re-
DMib ot mained for Rome. At some period duiing the
phiitsopiiH-. later years of Constantino, the adverse ninds
detained the Alexandrian fleet, and &mine began to
afSict the inhabitants of the city. The populace was in
tumult ; the government looked anxiously for means to
allay the dangerous ferment. The Christian party had
seen with jealouBy and alarm tlie influence which a
Heatlien philosopher, named Sopater, had obtained over
the mind of Constantine.' Sopater was a native of
Apamea, the scholar of lamblichus. The Emperor took
great delight in his society, and was thus in danger of
being perverted, if not to Heathenism, to that high
Platonic indifferentism, which would leave the two
religions on terms of perfect equality. Sopater was
seen seated on public occasions by the Emperor's side ;
and boasted, it was said, that the dissolution of Heathen-

•Ztaimus. ii. 40 i Soiom. 1-5;

f1Xt>. "t TiK I.(ll,. ,^li«y TOItiF.

Komp, in Miti. p. 2J-S5 ; edit.

» .r.^iw<^..;.rT« {tiw chnf

If wt are to beliere Ennapius. the

Christl™ miRht ™soi»blf take

infiu«n«I) hy^^ty^L rf f^Jry

with SopiiCT- : i iiir floffiAti! taJiiiui

n iir- ainv lal ttl^oalif air.tfw

ARIUS IN CONSTANTINOPLE.

H CnAC.

B iBm would be arrested by liis authority. During the
W famiae the Emperor eutered the theatre ; instead of the
usual acelamationB, he was received with a duU and
melancholy silence. The enemies of Sopater seized the
opportunity of accusing the philosopher of magic : his
unlawful arts had bound the winds in the adverse
quarter. If the Emperor did not, the populace would
readily, believe hhn to be the cause of all their cala-
mities. He was sacrificed to the popularity of the
Emperor; the order for his decapitation was hastily
issued, and promptly executed.

In the same spirit which caused the death of the
Heathen philosopher, Athanaaius was accused of threat-
ening to force the Emperor to his own measures, by
Btopping the supplies of com from the port of Alex-
andria. Constantine listened with jealous credulity to
the charge. The danger of leaving the power of starving
II, the capital in the hands of one who might bec-ome
hostile to the government, touched the pride "^ 3sb.
(rf the Emperor in the tenderest point. Atha- BmiBhiuMi
nafiiuB was banished to the remote city of utnvu,
Treves.

But neither the exile of Athanaaius, nor the un-
qualified — bis enemies of course asserted insincere or
hypocritical — acceptance of the Nicene creed by Arius
Hmself, allayed the differences. The presence of Arius
in Alexandria had been the cause of new dissensions.
He was recalled to Constantinople, where a inusincon-
council had been held, in which the Arian ■'™i™pi'^
party maintained and abused their predominance. But
Alexander, the Bishop of Constantinople, still firmly
resisted the reception of Arius into the orthodox com-
munion. Affairs were hastening to a crisis, ITie Arians,
with the authority of the Emperor on their side, threat-

3*2 DEATH OF ARIDS. EwMt

fined to force their way into the church, and to compel
the admissiuu of their champion. The Catholics, the
weaker party, had recourse to prayer ; the Arians already-
raised the voice of triomph. While AlexaDder was pros-
trate at the altar, Arias was borne through the wondering
city in a kind of ovation, surrounded by his friends, and
welcomed with loud acclamations by bia own party.
As he passed the porphyry column, he was forced to
retire into a house to relieve his natural wants, Hia
D«tb of return was anxiously expected, but in vain ; he
^""^ was found dead, as bis antagonists declared,
his bowels had burst out, and relieved the church from
the presence of the obstinate heretic We cannot wonder
that, at such a period of excitement, the Catholics, in
that well-timed incident, recognised a direct providential
interference in their favour. It was ascribed to the
prevailing prayers of Alexander and hia clergy. Under '
the specious pretext of a thanksgiving for the deliverance
of the church from the imminent peril of external vio-
lence, the Bishop prepared a solemn service. Athana-
siuB, in a public epistle, alludes to the fate of Judas,
which had befallen the traitor to the coequal dignity of
the Son. His hollow charity ill disguises his secret
triumph."

Whatever effect the death of Anus might produce
upon the mind of Constantine, it caused no mitigation
in bis unfavourable opinion of Atbanasius. He con-
temptuously rejected the petitions which were sent from
Alexandria to solicit his re -instatemeut ; he refused to

hst the d<sth of A
ient rcfutatiOQ of

sd Momchai, 3. Op.

BAPTISM OF CONSTANTINE.

383

recall that " prood, turbulent, obstmate, and intractalJe,"
preiato. It was not till he waa on Ma death-bed that
hia consent was hardly extorted for this act of mercy,
or rather of justice.

The Baptism of CoQBtautine on hia death-bed is one
1 f those questions which has involved eccleaias- g^n^ at
tical historians in inextricable embarrassment. c<™™""'
The fact is indisputable, it rests on the united authority
of the Greek and Latin writers. Though he had so
openly espoused the cause of Christianity — though he
had involved himself so deeply in the interests of the
Christian community, attended on their worship, pre-
sided,* or at least sanctioned their councils with fiis
presence, and had been constantly surrounded by the
Christian clergy, the Emperor had still deferred till the
very close of bis life his ibrmal reception into the Chria-
tian church, the ablution of his ains, the admission to
the privileges and hopes of the Christian, by that indis-
penaable rite of Baptism.'' There seems but one plain
solution of this difficulty. The Emperor constantly
maintained a kind of superiority over the Christian part

> If we are to Ulieie EuMhiiu, be

tiana imprimis, parum saoael prapius

preacher on Bom* of its most profound

remota notio. Nesoiua enim alutis

and mpUriDUS doctrines. 1 ouiiiot

et beoeficiornm k Christo hiimano

help suapecUog Uiat tlie Biehap haa

generi partorum, Christunl Deum esse

putabat, qui cultonmi suoruin iideni

W the Emperor. V. C. iv. 29. Com-

pitt Stanley, p. 333.

rebusque Kcondii cpmparare, hostcx

Christianitj of Conslantine a« oha-

malisque omnia generis aJEixre poluit.

. . . . Ita sensim de Tera re!igioai>

jodgment. De rehm Christ, anti
Const Magnum, p. 365. I eitiaol

poit victum MaMnlium wmii inaDinio

ChristlMue indele .... edoctus stul-

superstition um clanue perspiciebat, et
ChHsto uDi nnon nomen daboU" p.

ajui cum omnis Kligioni.. turn Chris-

977, 9TS.

ftB4 BAPTISM OF COIT8T,\NTlNE. Book lit

of his subjects. It was BtiU ratter the lofty and impar-
tial condescension of a protector, than the spiritual
equality of the proselyte. He stiJl asserted, and in maDy
cases exercised, the privilege of that high indifferentism,
which ruled his conduct by his own will or judgement,
rather than by the precepts of a severe and definite
religion. He was reluctant, though generally convinced
of the truth, and disposed to recognise the superiority of
the Christian religion, to commit himself by the irrevo-
cable act of initiation. He may have been still more
unwilling to sever himself entirely from the Heathen
majority of hia subjects, lest by such a step, in some
sudden yet always possible crisis, he might shake their
allegiance. In short, he would not surrender any part
of his dignity as Emperor of the world, especially as he
might suppose that, evea if neceseai-y to hia salvation as
a Christian, he could command at any time the advan-
tages of baptism. On the other hand, the Chris-
tians, then far more pliant than when their
undisputed authority ruled the minds of monarchs with
absolute sway, hardly emerged from persecution, strug-
gling for a still contested supremacy, divided among
themselves, a.nd each section courting the favour of the
Emperor, were glad to obtain an imperial convert on hie
own terms. In constant hope that the Emperor himself
would take tliis decisive step, they were too prudent or
too cautious to urge it with imperious or unnecessary
vehemence. He was not so entirely their own, but that
he might still be estranged by indiscretion or intem-
perance ; he would gradually become more enlightened,
and they were content to wait in humble patience till
Providence, who had raised up this powerful protector,
should render him folly, and exclusively, and opeoly-
their own.

Lnu-. IV. LAWS AGAINST PAGANISM. SiS

If it be diiBcuIt (o determine the extent to which
CoDstantine proceeded in the eBtabtisbment of Ejiemu.
Christianity, it is even more perplexing to ^"i^^'
estimate how far lie exerted the imperial p""*^
authority in the aboh'tion of Paganism. Conflicting
evidence encounters us at every point, EusebioB, in
three distinct paasagea in his ' Life of Constantine,'
asserts that he prohibited sacrifice;' that he issued two
laws to prohibit, both in the city and in the country,
the pollutions of the old idolatry, the setting up of
statues, divinations, and other unlawful practices; and
to command the total abolition of sacrifice;' that
throughout the lloman empire the " doors of idolatry "
were closed to the people and to the army, and every
kind of sacrifice was prohibited.'* Theodoret asserts "
that Constantine prohibited sacrifice, and, though he did
not destroy, shut up all the temples. In a passage of
his Panegyric," Eusebius asserts that the Emperor sent
two officers into every part of the empire, who forced the
priests to surrender up the statues of their gods, which,
having been despoiled of their ornaments, were melted
or destroyed. These strong assertions of Eusebius are, to
a certain extent, confirmed by expressions in the laws of
Constantine's Hnccessois, especially one of Constans, which

• e^o £ir<IpnT<>, ii. 44.

^tr ipxS W»">'t T« ical npn

t(i1bi, Burioi t< Tpiies inTryofn
.St. iv. 23. lunuKiiTa ^if

(»^Ai»I, ibid. 25. t<ifw.i naj

• Tbeodortt, Ti. 21. CompM*
men.iii. 17; OroJius, Tii. 28.
<> De Uudlb. CongtanL i. B.

* KiLfliiXOU, it TnU iwh TYJ 'Pb-

VOL. II.

888 KXTENT TO WHICH Bock lU.

appeals to an edict of his father Constanliiie, which
prohibited sacrifice."

On the other hand, Eusebius bimBelf inserts, and
ascribes to a date posterior to Bome of these laws, docu-
ments, which he professes to have seen in Constantioe's
own hand, proclaiming tlie most impai'tial toleration to
the Pagans, and deprecating compulsion in religions
matters. "Let all enjoy the same peace; let no one
disturb another in his religious worship ; let each act as
he thinks fit ; let those who withhold their obedience
from Thee (it is an address to the Deity), have their
temples of falsehood if they think right." ^ He exhorts
to mutual charity, and declares, "It is a very different
thing willingly to submit to trials for the sake of im-
mortal life, and to force others by penalties to embrace
one faith." ' These generous sentiments, if Constantine
were issuing edicts to close the temples, and prohibiting
the sacred rites of his Pagan subjects, had been the
groesest hypocrisy. The laws against the soothsayers
spoke, as was before shown, the same tolerant language
with regard to the public ceremony of the religion."

' "CeiKt iDpentltJa, neriRcionim , fia^A.<T(u tuDts koI wparrFrit , . .

ibolmtnr iiuania. Nun quicuDque Of !' (airroii ip4\Koms, ix^"^^'

oeotn \fsaa divi PiiiKipu, paivnlig BBii\6ii.frin ri T^t 'ttaSakoyiai

noatri, ft banc nostra tmuiEuetuiIiais ri/ityii, Vit. CcDBt. ii. 26.

bimrt, compcteEa ia cum Tindietn, et raalas iB\iir itoiialai IwaraipiioVai,

prBHU KDtfntia eiHraCur." Cod. KUu ri fu-ri TiiiapUi irarayxi-

Theodoa. ivi. 10. 3. See Uktvae the it,r. c. «0.

note ef Godefro;. ^ "Qui ytvo id vobi^i eoBtiniatiB

' 'Ofufov mil trioTfiouru- ol condncarc, nditc nriu puUiias itqiit

it^aaiiLtuyoi j^aiporrts XoftfiaifiTU- delubra Ft coDBUtitudinia vestTjj; cck-

ffia fi^t^T Tf vol ^ffvx^ iwAKai/- brat« BoienmiA ; iw enitQ prohibemiu

irai . . . . MqStli rhv !ripnit nafi- jirEtfritc uiurpationii afficia liban

Ttf rc^^l Ijuwrrs! trip q ^f^^ lio ti'actari." Cod. Theodoi. Ivi. 10

Chap, IV. PAGANISM WAS 8UPPEESSED, 387

Can the victory over Liciniua bo entirely have changed
the policy of Conatantine, as to have induced him to
prohibit altogether rites, wliich but a few years before
he had sanctioned by his authority ?

The Pagan writers, who are not scrupulous in their
charges against the memory of Conetantine, and dwell
with bitter resentment ou all his overt acts of hostility
to the ancient religion, do not accuse him of these direct
encroachments on Paganism, Neither Julian nor Zosi-
muB lay tliis to his charge. Libanius distinctly asserta
that the temples were left open and undisturbed during
his reign, and that Paganism remained unchanged.'

All historical records strongly confirm the opinion
that Paganism was openly professed ; its temples re-
Btored ; '' its rites celebrated ; neither was its priesthood
degraded from their immunities, nor the estates belong-
ing to the temples generally alienated ; in short, that it
was the public religion of a great part of the empire ;
and still coiifponted Christianity, if not on equal teiina,
still with pertinacious resistance, down to the reign of
Theoilosius, and even that of his sons, Constantine him-
self, though he neither offered sacriflces, nor eonsiilt«d
the Sibylline books, nor would go up to the temple of
the Capitoline Jupiter with the senate and the people,

' TQf uteri vi/ijni Si Btpawttat tbe HuUinrity of the IM-KrHl of lh«

Mrtirtv obti Ir. Pro Templia, Tol. city, an.l S. P. Q. I:. Allars were

ii. p. 162. er«l«i to oilier Pugaa pkis, Compnn

Liboniiu adds tint Cosatmitius, on Betignot, i. 106.

Id chiinge of circkimslanoes, _SrsJ M. Beiignot, in his FlwtruifiDn dn

, ted wicrifice. Compnre aUo PnEanianie ea Owident, Ims collflrtrf

f Oral. 2«. JuliBn Omt. Til. p. 424. with great iodo-tiy Ihe prooti of thfi

100, n. 6, Ihe f»ft, from hacripliong, nwJnla. la-'

Innilion of ths olher of tbe more minute coDfeir

:>mpie of Coneoid, Jurin« the coobbI- porwy memoruJi.
Ip of Pauliom {A. C. Ml, 332), by

2pii

iBOLITIOX OF SACRIFICES.

Book IC H
at least ■

performed, nevertheless, some of the functions, at least
did not disdEtin the appellation, of Supreme Pontiff.

Perhaps we may safely adopt the following conclusions.
There were two kinds of sacrifices abolished by Coustan-
tine. I. The private sacrifices, connected with unlawful
acts of tbeui^y and of magic ; those midnight offerings
to the powers of darkness, which, in themselves, were
illegal, and led to scenes of unhallowed licence," II.
Those which might be considered the state sacrifices
offered by the Emperor himself, or by his representatives
in his name, either in the cities or in the army. Though
Constantine adyanced many Chriatians to offices of trust,
and no doubt many who were ambitious of such offices
conformed to the religion of the Emperor, probably most
of the high dignities of the state were held by Pagans.
An edict might be required to induce them to depart
from the customorj' usage of eaorifiee. wliieh with the
Christian officers would quietly fall into desuetude."
But still, the sacrifices made by the piiesthood, at the
expense of the sacerdotal establishments, and out of
their own estates — though in some instances these

' Than >> ■ ninlHl at
aotiua u Supreme Ponli

it of Coli-

■■ S« the laws reliCing la diTJIia-
tion, tbare, p. 392.

M. U Bulit nod H. Beugnot, oaukl
tttnacter the terms rk ^wrq^ Tijs
•iJwXoXoTpim, in the rfsoipl of
ConstODtiae, ind the "insuia iup«i^
itilio'' of the law of Conilau, to
Tvftr eicJuBJTelj lo llie« DOoturno]
find forbiddeii amfim. M. fiedgnol
hjH abmTed, that Oooiluitiiie ■Iwa;:^
uiei respeclfBl and coortcooi Ungiuge
fcncernmE Pnfanum. Vetus obser-

so[emnti ; coDsuetudinis geotilitur
nkmnit^ The laws of the later
emperora employ very different termn.
Error ; defMMia ; error Tettrum ;
proAiDiii rilui ; ncrile^us ritui ;
ndahui ntua; nipeFBtitio Pag«iu,

funiuta! superatilionis erro™ [ Uolldui
E^ooram error. Cod. Tbmtoa,
t. r. p. 355, BeagDot, torn, i, p. BO.

■ The pn^bition to the iq^i and
arfwrurrunl {m ijiiDlatioa abon
from EiisebioSj tdei^ I cmiziira, m

Chap. IV. LKGAL ESTABLISHMENT OV CHHISTIAMITr. 38y

satates were seized by Constantine, and the sacerdotal
colleges reduced to poverty — and the piiblie sacrifices,
offered by the piety of distingmshed individuals, would
be made as usual. In the capital there can be little
doubt that sacrifices were offered, in the name of the
senate and people of Eome, till a much later period.

Christianity may now be said to have ascended the
imperial throne: with the single exception of UgaiKia-
Julian, from this period the monarchs of the chnnuniiy.
Eoman empire professed the religion of the Gospel.
This important crisis in the history of Christianity almost
forcibly arrests the attention to contemplate the change
wrought in Christianity by its advancement into a domi-
nant power in the state ; and the change in the condition
of mankind up to tliis period, attributable to the direct
authority or indirect influence of the new Eff«iBot
religion. By ceasing to exist as a separate reiigion.
community, and by advancing ita pretensions to influence
the general government of mankind, Christianity, to a
certain extent, forfeited its independence. It could not
but submit to these laws, framed, as it might seem, with
ita own concurrent voice. It was no longer a republic,
governed exclusively — as far at least as ita religious
concerns — by its own internal polity. The interference
of the civil power in some of its most private affairs, the
promulgation of ita canons, and even in some cases the
election of its bishops, by the state, was the price which
it must inevitably pay for its association with the ruling
power. The natural satisiaction, the more than par-
donable triumph, in seeing the Emperor of the world a
I Eiuppliant with themselves at the foot of the cross, would
blind the Christian world, in general, to theae conse-
I quences of their more exalted position. The more ardent
I and unworldly would fondly suppose that a Cliii&tian

300 LEGAL ESTABLISHMENT OF CHWSTUXITY. Uwi nr.

emperor would always be actuated by Chrigtian motives,
and tliat tbe imperial authority, instead of making ag-
gressions OD Christian independence, would rather bow
in humble submiseion to its acknowledged dominiou.
His main object would be to develope the energies of
the new religion in the amplest freedom, and allow them
full scope in the Bubjugation of the world.

The Emperor as little anticipated that he was intro-
oiiUiodviL ducing as an antagonistic power, an inextin-
powor. guishable principle of liberty, into the adminis-

tration of human afl'airs. This liberty was based on
deeper foundations than the hereditary freedom of the
ancient republics. It api^ealed to a tribunal higher
than any which could exist upon earth. This autagooistic
principle of independence, however, at times apparently
crushed, and submitting to voluntary slavery, or even
lending itself to be the instrument of arbitrary despot-
ism, was inherent in the new religion, and would not
cease till it had asserted and, for a considerable period,
exercised an authority superior to that of the civil
government. Already in Athanasius might be seen the
one subject of Constantino who dared to resist his will.
From Athanasius, who owned liimself a subject, but with
inflexible adherence to his own opinions, to Ambrose,
who rebuked the great Theodosius, and from Ambrose
up to the Pope who set his foot on the neck of the pros-
trate Emperor, the progress was slow, but natural and
certain. In tliis profound prostration of the hmnan
mind and the total extinction of the old sentiments of
itomai) liberty, in the adumbration of the world by what
assumed the pomp and tlie language of an Asiatic
despotism, it is impossible to calculate tlie latent as well
as open effect of this moral resistance. In Constan-
tinople, indeed, and in liie East, the clergy never ob-

Cr*p. IV. LEGAL ESTABI.ISHMEKT OF CHRISTIANITY. 391

taiiied cruHicient power to be formidable to the civil
anthority ; their feuds too often brought them in a sort
of moral servitude to the foot of the throne ; Btill the
Chrietian, and the Chrigtiaii alone, throughout this long
period of humaa degradation breathed an atmosphere of
moral freedom, which raised him above the general level
of servile debasement.

During the reign of Conatantine, Christianity had
made a rapid advance, no doubt in the number hdw hi dk
of its proselytes, as well as in its external me empire,
position. It was not yet the established religion of the
empire. It did not as yet stand forward as the new
religion adapted to the new order of things, as a part of
the great simultaneous change, which gave to the Koman
world a new capital, a new system of government, and,
in some important instances, a new jurisprudence. Yet
having sprung up at once, under the royal favour, to a
perfect equality with the prevailing Heathenism, the
mere manifestation of that favour, where the antagonistic
religion hung so loose upon the minds of men, gave it
much of the power and authority of a dominant faith.
The religion of the Emperor would soon become that of
the court ; and, by somewhat slower degrees, that of the
empire. At present, however, as we have seen, little
open aggression took place upon Paganism. Tlie few
temples which were closed were insulated cases, and
condemned as offensive to public morality. In general,
the edifices stood in all their former majesty ; for as yet
the ordinary process of dissolution, from neglect or decay,
could have produced little effect. The difference was,
that the Christian churches began to assume a more
stately and imposing form. In the new capital, they
gnrpafised in grandevir, and probably in decoration, the

393 LAWS RELATING TO SUNDAYS. Booi Uli

Pagan temples which belonged to old Byzantium. The
immunities granted to the Christian clergy only placed
tliem on the same level with the Pagan priesthood.
The pontifical ofBces were still held by tlie distinguished
men of the state : the Emperor himself was long the
chief pontiff; but the religious office had become a kind
of appendage to the temporal dignity. Tlie Christian.
prelates were constantly admitted, in virtue of their
office, to the imperial presence.

On the state of society at large, on its different forma
KBtttoc and gradations, little impression had as yet
Miahmtaiof been made by Christianity. The Christians
en iBdttj. were still a separate people ; Christian litera-
ture was exclusively religious, and addressed, excepting
in its apologies, or its published exhortations against
Paganism, to the initiate alone. Its language would bet
unintelligible to those uninstrucf«d in Christiau theo-
logy. Yet the general legislation of Constantine, inde-
pendent of those edicts which concerned the Christian
community, bears some evidence of the silent under-
UKsn-iiUng working of Christian opinion. The rescript,
tuSnndwB. indeed, for the religious obse-rranee of the
Sunday, which enjoined the suspension of all publio
business and private labour, except that of agriculture,
was enacted, according to the apparent terms of the
decree, for the whole Roman empire, Yet^ unless wa
had direct proof, that the decree set forth the Christian
reason for the sanctity of the day, it may be doubted
whether the act woiild not be received by the greater
part of the empire, aa merely adding one more festival
to the Fasti of the empire, as proceeding entirely from
the will of the Emperor, or even grounded on his au-
■Jiority BB Supreme Pontiff, by which he had the plerarj

LAWS TENDIKG TO HUMANITl'. o93

power of appointing hoIy-dayB." In fact, as we have
before obBerved, the day of the Sun would be willingly
iiallowed by almost all the Pagan world, eapeciaUy that
part which had admitted any tendency towards the
Oriental theology.

Where the legislation of Conatantine was of a humaner
cast, it would be unjust not to admit the influ- ^.^ lename
ence of Christian opinions, spreading even "''«™"'"J'-
beyond the immediate circle of the Christian com-
munity, as at least a conourrent cause of the improve-
ment. In one remarkable instance, there is direct
authority that a certain measure was adopted by the
advice of an influential Christian, During the period
of anarchy and confusion which preceded the universal
empire of Constantine, the misery had been so great,
particularly in Africa and Italy, that the sale of infanta
for slaves, their exposure, and even infanticide, had
become fearfully common, Constantine issued an edictj
in which he declared that the Emperor should be con-
sidered the father of all such children. It was a cruelty,
irreconcileable with the spirit of the times, to permit
any subjects of the empire to perish of starvation, or to
be reduced to any unworthy action by actual hunger-
Funds were assigned for the food and clothing of such
children as the parents should declare themselves unable
to support) partly on the imperial revenues, partly on
the revenues of the neighbouring cities. As this measure
did not prevent the sale of children, parents were de-
clared incapable of reclaiming children thus sold, unless
they paid a reasonable price for their enfranchisement.'

804 LAWS COSCERXIXC SLAVERY. Book HI,

ChilrlreD Mhjch bad been exposed could not be reclaiined
froin those who bad received them into their families,
whether by adoption or as slaves. \Miatever may have
been the wisdom, the humanity of tliese ordinances ia
unquestionable. They are suid to liave been issaed by
the advice of Lactantius, to whom had been entrusted
the education of Crispus, the eon of Constantine.

Child-stealing, for the purpose of selling the children
conten,i„g for slaves, was visited with a penalty, which
"•"''■ both in its nature and barbarity retained the
stamp of the old Roman manners. The criminal
condemned to the amphitheatre, either to be devoured
by wild beasts or exhibited as a gladiator. Christianity
had not as yet allayed the passion for these savage
amusements of the Roman people; yet, in conjunction
with tlie somewhat milder manners of the East, it ex-
cluded gladifttorial eshibitions from the new capital.
The Grecian amusements of the theatre and of the
chariot-race satisfied the populace of Constantinople,
Whatever might be the improved condition of the slaves
within the Christian community, the tone of legislation
preserves the same broad and distinct line of demarca-
tion between the two classes of society. The master,
indeed, was deprived of the arbitrary power of life and
death. The death of a slave under torture, or any
excessive severity of punishment, was punishable as
homicide ; but if he died under a vioderate chastisement,
the master was not responsible. In the distribution of
the royal domains, care was to be taken not to divide
the families of the prsedial slaves. It is a cruelty, says
the law, to separate parents and children, brothers and
sisters, husbands and wives,"* But marriages of free

tCod, Then
chola quMtian

AGAIKST RAVE AND ABDUCTION, 39S

women with slaTes were punishable with death ; the
children of aueh unions were indeed free, but could not
inherit their mothers' property. The person of dignity
and station, who Lad children by a marriitge contracted
with a woman of base condition, could not make a testa-
ment in their favour ; even purchases made in their
names or for their beneiit, might be claimed by the
legitimate heirs. The base condition comprehended not
only slaves but freed women, actresses, tavern-keepers,
and their daughters, as well as those of courtezans or
gladiators. Slaves who were concerned in the seduction
of their masters' children were to be burned alive with-
out distinction of sex. The barbarity of this punish-
ment rather proves the savage manners of the time
than the inferior condition of the slave ; for the receivers
of the royal domains who were convicted of depredation
or fiaud were eondemued to the same penalty.'

It can scarcely be doubted that the stricter moral
tone of C'onstantine's legislation more or less Liwigamsi
remotely emanated from Christianity. The bMocmqu.
laws against rape and seduction were framed with so
much ngour, as probably to make their general execu-
tion dilBcult, if not impracticable.' The ravisher had
before escaped with impunity ; if the injured party did
not prosecute him for his crime, she had the right of
demanding reparation by marriaga By the law of

Wallon, Bur I'Eaiilanige dan* I'Ant
quitf.

" " , which wna pei
fcrmed undpr Ihs snnction of a ral
[iaus ceremoDtfll in [ho HiMltht

the chu]Xh : tin iifTgj might manamit
their eLbvck, in (ha pievnce of the
chuiuh. Cod. Theod. iv. 7. 1.

•9fl LAWS AGAIKST EATE AND AEDUCTION. Bowi III,-

Constantine, the consent of the female made her tui
accomplice in the erime ; she was amenable to the same
penalty. What that penalty was is not quite clear, bat
it seems that the ravisher was exposed to the wild beasts
in the amphitheatre. Even where the female had suf-
fered forcible abduction, she had to acquit herself of all
suspicion of consent, either from levity of manoer, or
want of proper vigilance. Tliose pests of society, the
pandars, who abused the confidence of parents, and
made a traffic of the virtue of their daughters, were in
the same spirit condemned to a punishment so horrible,
as, no doubt, moi'e frequently to ensure their impunity :
melted lead was to be poured down their throats. Pa-
rents who did not prosecute such offences were banished,
and their property confiscated. It ia not, liowever, so
much the severity of the punishments, indicating a
stronger abhorrence of the crime, ks the eocial and
moral evils of which it took cognisance, which shows
the remoter workings of a sterner moral principle. A
religion which requires of its followers a strict, as re-
gards the Christianity of this period, it may be said an
ascetic rigour, desires to enforce on the mass of mankind
by the power of the law that which it cannot effect by
the more legitimate and permanent means of moral
influence. In a small community where the law is the
echo of the public sentiment, or where it rests on an
acknowledged divine authority, it may advance further
into the province of morality, and extend its provisions
Law yi^iiut iiito every relation of society. The Mosaic law,
•iioitsry. which, simultaneously with the Christian spirit,
began to enter into the legislation of the Christian
emperors, in its fearful penalties imposed upon the
illicit commerce of the sexes, concurred with the rigor-
ons jealousy of the Asiatic tribes of that region con-

COSCEHSrao DIVORCE.

397

cerniag the honour of their women. But when the lawg
of Constantine suddenly classed the crime of adultery
with those of poison and aseassination, and declared it a
capital offence, it may be doubted whether any improve-
ment ensued, or was likely to ensue, in the public
morals. Uoless Christianity hod already greatly cor-
rected the general licentiousness of the Eoman world,
not merely within but without ita pale, it may safely be
affirmed that the general and impartial execution of
such a statute was impossible.' The severity conwminB
of the law against the breach of conjugal ^^'"'™-
fidelity was accompanied with strong restrictions upon
the facility of divorce. Three crimes alone, in the bus-
band, justified the wife in demanding a legal separa-
tion — homicide, poisoning, or the violation of sepulchres.
This latter crime was, apparently, very frequent, and
looked upon with great abhurrence." In these cases,
tlie wife recovered her dowry ; if she separated for any
other cause, she forfeited aU to a single needle, and was
liable to perpetual banishment.' The husband, in order
to obtain a divorce, must convict his wife of poisoning,
adultery, or keeping notoriously infamous company. In
all other cases, he restored the whole of the dowry. If
he married again, the former wife, thus illegally cast oS*,
might cl^m his whole property, and even the dowry of

f It niny be ailmittal, Bt ■ddh

[dence of the InelGciencv of this law,

It in th« oat I'ogQ the ))etia1tie!

:Tt ailunllj' iiggravBt«d. The oimi-

1) weie t»Ddeniti«il either to be

raed alive, or sfned up ia a cack

il out into the Gen.

■ Code.. Theodob. iii. 16, 1.

> The Uw ol' CoDBtaDtioe aud Coa-

ins, which iHBile intetiniitriage with

a niece a capital crinie, ie supposed by
Godefny to hate been a local att,
directed agnimt the laiitf of Syrinn
murBle in tliia nepecC Cod. Theod.
iii. 12, 1. The law issued at Rome,
prohibiting intfrro'irriage with foe
lister of « 'lecensed wife, annulled th/.
marriage, nod tiastnrdiiied thei:hilii]eii.
Ui. IS, 2.

i93 LAWS FAVOURABLE TO CELIBACT. Book III.

the second wife. These impediments to the dissolution
of the marrittge tie, the facility of which experience and
reason concur in denouncing as deatructive of social
virtue and of domeetio happiness, with penalties affect-
ing the property rather than the person, were more
likely to have a favourable and extonaive operation than
the sanguinary proscription of adultery. Marriage being
a'cidl contract in the Eomaii world, the state had full
right to regulate the stability and the terms of the com-
pact. In other respects, in which the jurisprudence
assumed a liigher tone, Christianity, I should conceive,
was far more influential through its religious persuasive-
ness, than by tlie rigour which it thus impressed upon
j^^i„i the laws of the empii-e. That nameless crime,
pnikruiy. jj^g universal disgrace of Greek and Itoman
society, was far more effeetively repressed by the ab-
horrence infused iato the public sentiment by the pure
religion of the Gospel, than by the penalty of death,
enacted by statute against the offence. Another law of
unqneetionable humanity, and, probably, of more ex-
uakiDgor tensive operation, prohibited the making of
mnudit eunuchs. The slave who had suffered this
mutilation might at once claim his freedom.'

Perhaps the greatest evidence of the secret aggression
Lun itmai- of Christianity, or rather, in my opinion, of the
oeutacy. foreign Asiatic principle which wag now com-
pletely interwoven witli Christianity, was the gradual
relaxation of the laws unfavourable to celibacy. TIio
Roman jurisprudence bad always proceeded on the
principle of encouraging the multiplication of citizens,
particularly in the higher orders, which, from varioua

BURUL OF COJJSTANTIKE. 399

causes, espet'ially the general Kcentiousness under the
later republic and the early empire, were in danger ol'
becoming extinct. The parent of many children waa a
public benefactor, the unmarried man a useless burden,,
if not a traitor, to the well-being of the state. The small
establishment of the vestal virgins was evidently the
remains of an older religion, inconsistent with the gene-
ral sentiment and manners of Eome.

On this point the encroachment of Christianity waa
elow and difficult. The only public indication of its
influence waa the relaxation of the Papia Poppiean law.
This statute enforced certain disabilities on those who
were unmarried, or without children by their mai-riage,
at the age of twenty-five. The former could only
inherit from their neai-est relations ; the latter obtained
only the tenth of any inheritance which might devolve
on their wives, the moiety of property devisod. to them
by will. The forfeiture went to the public treasury,
and waa a considerable source of profit. Constautine
attempted to harmonise the two conflicting principles.
He removed the disqualifications on celibacy, but he
left the statute iu force against married persons who
were without children. In more manifest deference to
Christiftuity, he extended the privilege hitherto confined
to the vestal virgins of making their will, and that before
the usual age appointed by the law, to all who had
made a religious vow of celibacy.

Even after his death, both religions vied, as it were,
for Constantine, He received with impartial euruur
favour the honours of both. The first Christian '^"""■°""-
emperor was deified by the Pagans, in a later period he
was worshipped as a saint by part of the Christian church.
On the same medal appears his title of " God," with the
monogram, the sacred symbol of Christianity ; in an-

400 CONVERSIO^ UF ^THIUI'IA.

other he is seated in the chariot of the Sun, in a car^'
drawo hj four horses, with a hand stretched forth iroin
the clouds to raise him to Heaven." But to show
respect at once to the Emperor and to the Christian
Apostle, contraiy to the rigid usage, which forbade any
burial to take place \vithin the city, Constantine was
interred in the porch of the church dedicated to the
Ajwstles. Constautius did great honour (in Chrysoe-
tom'a opinion) to bis imperial father, by bnryiug biin in
the Fisherman's Porch.'

During the reign of Constantine, Christianity con-
ConwrBim tinuod to advauce beyond the borders of the
ci .tiMopta. j^iuan empire, and, in some degree, to indem-
nify herself for the losses which she sustained in the
kingdom of Persia. The Ethiopians appear to have
attained some degree of civilisation ; a considerable part
of the Aiabiao oominerce was kept up with tha other
side of the Red Sea, through the port of Adutis ; and
Greek letters appear, from inscriptions recently disco-
vered,'' to have made considerable progress among this
barbarous people. The Eomans called this conntry,
with that of the Homerites on the other side of the Ara-
bian gulph, by the vague name of the nearer India.
Travellers were by no means uncommon in these times,
whether for purposes of trade, or, following the tradi-
tional history of the ancient sages, from the more disin-

CHAP. IV*

CONVERSION OF ETHIOPIA.

401

terested desire of knowledge. Metrodorus, a philosopher,
had extended his travels throughout this region,^ and,
on his return, the account of his adventures induced
another person of the same class, Meropius of Tyre, to
visit the same regions. Meropius was accompanied by
two youths, Edesius and Frumentius. Meropius, with
most of his followers, fell in a massacre, arising out of
some sudden interruption of the peace between the
Ethiopians and the Bomans. Edesius and Frumentius
were spared on account of their youth. They were taken
into the service of the King, and gradually rose, till one
became the royal cup-bearer ; the other, the adminis-
trator of the royal finances. The King died soon after
they had been elevated to these high distinctions, and
bequeathed their liberty to the strangers. The queen

* The same Metrodorus afterwai-ds
made a journey into further India;
his object was to visit the Brahmins,
to examine their religious tenets and
practices. Metrodorus instinicted the
Indians in the construction of water-
mills and baths. In their gratitude,
they opened to him the inmost sanc-
tuary of their temples. But the virtue
of the philosopher Metrodorus, was
not proof against the gorgeous trea^
sures which dazzled his eyes ; he stole
a great quantity of pearls, and other
jewels; others, he said that he had
i-eceived as a present to Gonstantine
from the King of India. He appeared
in Constantinople. The Emperor re-
ceived, with the highest satisfitction,
those magnificent gifts which Metro-
dorus presented in lus own name.
But Metrodorus complained that his
offerings would have been far. more
sumptuous if he had not been attacked

VOL. II.

on his way through Persia, contrary
to the spirit of the existing peace
between the empires, and plundered of
great part of his treasures. Gonstan-
tine, it is said, wrote an indignant
remonstrance to the King of Persia.
This story is emious, as it shows the
connection kept up by traders and
travellers with the further East, which
accounts for the allusions to Indian
tenets and usages in the Christian, as
well as the Pagan, writers of the
time. It rests on the late authority
of Cedrenus (t. i. p. 295), but is
confirmed by a passage of Ammianus
Marcellinus, who, however, places it
in the reign of Constautius. Sed
Constantium ardores Parthicos suc-
cendisse, cum Metrodori mendaciis
avidius acquiesdt, Iziv. c. 4. Com-
pare St. Mai*tin's additions to Le B«au^
i. 343.

2 D

402 CONVERSION OF JETHIOPIA. Book IH^ J

entreated them to continue their valnable aerrices till j
her son shotdd attain to full age. The Itomans com* J
plied with her request, and the supreme gOYermnent obi
the kingdom of Ethiopia was administered by these twotl
Romans, but the chief post was occupied by Frumentins; T
Of the causes which disposed the mind of Frumentins t(W i
wards Christianity we know nothing ; he is represented 1
as seized with an eager desire of becoming acquainted ^
with its tenets, and anxiously inquiring whether any
Christians existed in the country, or could be found
among the Roman travellers who visited it,* It is more
probable, since there were so many Jews, both on the
Arabian and the African side of the gulf, that some
earlier knowledge of Christianity had spread into these
regions. But it was embraced with ardour by Fmmen-
tins; he built a church, and converted many of the \
people. When the 3'oiiiig ting came of age, notwith- J
standing the remonstrances of the prince and his mother, j
Frumentius and his companion returned to their nativs 1
country. Frumentius passed through Alexandria, and^J
having communicated to Athanasius the happy begin^ J
ning3 of the Gospel in that wild region, the influence ofi 1
that commanding prelate induced him to accept the]
mission of the Apostle of India. He was consecrate^i,!
Bishop of Axum by the Alexandrian prelate, and thatti
see was always considered to owe allegiance to th(^J
patriarchate of Alexandria. The preaching of Fru-
mentius was said to have been eminently successful, not-
merely among the Ethiopians, but also among the
neighbouring tribes of Nubians and Blemmyes. Hia

CHAP. IV. OF THE IBERIANS. 403

name is still reverenced as the first of the Ethiopian
pontiffs. But probably in no country did Christianity
so soon degenerate into a mere form of doctrine ; the
wild inhabitants of these regions sank downward rather
than ascended in the scale of civilisation ; and the fruits
of Christianity, humanity, and knowledge, were stifled
amid the conflicts of savage tribes, by ferocious manners,
and less frequent in1;era>urse with more cultivated
nations.*

The conversion of the Iberians^ was the work of a
holy virgin. Nino was among the Armenian of the
maidens who fled from the persecutions of the ^*^^^**«^
Persians, and found refuge among the warlike nation of
Iberia, the modem Georgia^ Her seclusion, her fasting,
and constant prayers, excited the wonder of these fierce
warriors. Two cures which she is said to have wrought,
one on the wife of the king, still further directed the
attention of the people to the marvellous stranger. The
grateful queen became a convert to Christianity. Mih-
ran, the king, still wavered between the awe of his an-
ident deities, the fear of his subjects, and his inclination
to the new and wonder-working faith. One day when
he was hunting in a thick and intricate wood, he was
enveloped in a sudden and impenetrable mist Alone,
separated from his companions, his awe-struck mind
thought of the Christians' God ; he determined to em-
brace the Christian faith. On a sudden the mist cleared
off, the light shone gloriously down, and in this natural
image the king beheld the confirmation of the light of
truth spread abroad within his soul. After much oppo-

* Compaiie Stanley, Enstern Church,
12, 14, and in other passagfs.^
' Socrates, i. 20 Sozomeu, ii. c. 7 ;

Rufin. z. 10 ; Tbeodoret, i. 24 ; Motea
Chcmn, Lib. ii. & S3 ; Klaproth,
Travela in Georpa.

2 D 2

<04

CONVEBSION OF THE IBERIANS.

BooKlH.

sition, the temple of the great god Aramazd (the Ormuzd
of the Persian system) was levelled with the earth. A
cross was erected upon its ruins by the triumphant Nino,
which was long worshipped as the palladium of the king«
dom.* Wonders attended on the construction of the
first Christian church. An obstinate pillar refused to
risC) an3 defied the utmost mechanical skill of the
people to force it from its oblique and pendant position.
The holy virgin passed the night in prayer. On the
morning the pillar rose majestically of its own accord,
and stood upright upon its pedestal. The wondering
people burst into acclamations of praise to the Chris*
tians' God, and generally embraced the faith. The king
of Iberia entered into an alliance with Constantine,
who sent him valuable presents, and a Christian bishop.
Eustathius: it is said, the deposed patriarch of An*
tioch, undertook this mission by the command of the
Emperor ; and Iberia was thus secured to the Christian
faith.

' In 1801 this crois, or that which
pei'petual tradition aoconnted tm the
identical crca; , was ramored to }*«tAr>

burg by Prince Bagration. It wa«
restored, to the great joy of the natioa,
by order of the En^peror Alexvodu*. -

IHE SONS OF CONSTANTIME.

CHAPTER V.

Chrudaoitif m

IT the BOoa of Conatanljne.

If Ohristtanity was making such rapid progress in the
conquest of the world, the world was making Acrwiionot
fearful reprisala on Christianity. By enlisting onruuntuie.
new passions and interests in its cause, religion sur-
rendered ilaelf to an inaeparable feUowship with those
passions and interests. The more it mingles with the
tide of himian affairs, the more tiirbid becomes the
stream of Christian history. In the intoxication of
power, the Christian, like ordinary men, forgot his
original character ; and the religion of Jesus, instead of
diffusing peace and happiness through society, might,
to the superficial observer of human afTairs, seem intro-
duced only as a new element of discord and misery into
the society of man.

The Christian emperor dies ; he is succeeded by hia
sons, educated in the faith of the Gospel. The first act
of the new reign is the murder of one of the brothers,
and of the nephews of the deceased sovereign, who were
guilty of being named in the will of Constantine as
joint heirs to the empire. Thb act, indeed, was that of
a ferocious soldiery, though the memory of Constantins
is not free from the suspicion, at least of connivance in
these bloody deeds. Christianity appears only in a
favourable light as interposing between the assassins
snd their victim. Marcus, Bishop of Arethnsa, saved
on from his enemies: the future apostate was con

*06 THE SOKS OF CONSIANTINE. Book IIL

cealed under the altar of the church. Yet, on th©
accession of the sods of Constantine, to the causes ot'
fraternal animosity usual on the division of a kingdom 1
Reiirt™ between several brothers, was added that of I
otih'tm religioua hostility. The two Emperors (for
Moi. they were speedily reduced to two) placed

themselvea at the head of the two contending parties in
Christianity. The weak and voluptuous Constana ad-
hered with inflexible firmness to the cause of Athana-
aius; the no less weak and tyrannical ConatautiuB, to
that of Arianisni. The East was arrayed against the
West. At Borne, at Alexandria, at Sardica, and, aftei^
wards, at Aries and Milan, Athanasius was triumphantly
acquitted ; at Antioch, at Philippopolis, and finally at
Kimini, he was condemned with almost equal unanimity.
Even within the church iteelf, tlie distribution of the
auperior dignities became an object of fatal ambition and
strife. The streets of Alexandria and of Coustantinople
were deluged with blood by the partisans of rival
bishops. In the latter, an officer of high distinction,
sent by the Emperor to quell the tumult, was slain, and
his body treated with the utmost indignity by the
infuriated populace.

To dissemble or to di^uise these melancholy facts, is
alike inconsistent with Christian truth and wisdom. In
some degree they are acc'Oimted for by the proverbial
reproach against historj', that it is the record of human
foUy and crime ; and history, when the world became
impregnated with Christianity, did not at once assume a
higher office. In fact, it extends its view only over the
surface of society, below which, in general, lie human
virtue and happiness. This would be especially the case
with regard to Christianity, whether it withdi-sw from
thti sight of man, according to the monastic interprets-

SLOW PROGRESS OF MORAL IKFLUENCE. 407

tion of ifci precepts, into solitary coranmiiion with the
Peity ; or, in its more genuine spirit, was content with
exercising its Immanising influence in the more remote
and obscure quarters of the general social system.

Even the annals of the Church take little notice of
those cities where tlie Christian episcopate passed calmly
down through a succession of pious and heneficent pre-
lates, who lived and died in the undisturbed attachment
and veneration of their Christian disciples, and respected
by the hostile Pagans; men whose noiseless course of
beneficence was constantly dimiuishing llie mass of
.human misery, and improving the social, the moral, as
well as the religious condition of mankind. But an
election contested with violence, or a feud which divided
a city into hostile parties, arrested the general attention,
■and was perpetuated in the records, at first of the
€lmrcli, afterwards of the Empire.

But, in fact, the theological opinions of Christianity
naturally made more rapid progress than its Mo™imim
moral influence. The former had only to over- JjlJJ^^
power the resistance of a religion which had """""=°-
already lost its hold upon the mind, or a philosophy too
speculative for ordinary understandings and too unaatis-
factory for the more curious and enquiring ; they had only
to enter, as it wei-e, into a vacant ])laeo in the miud of
man. But the moral influence had to contest, not only
with the natural dispositions of man, but wilh the bar-
barism and depraved manners of ages. While, then,
the religion of the world underwent a total change ;
while the Church rose on the ruins of the temple, and
the pontifical establishment of Paganism became gradu-
ally extinct, or aufl'ered violent suppression ; the moral
revolution was far more slow and far less complete.
Wilh a large portion of mankind, it must be admitted

<08

MORAL MOEE SLOW

that the religion itself was Pagauism under anotli^
form and with different appellations ; with another
part, it was the religion passively received without any
change in the moral sentiments or habits ; with a third,
and, perhaps, the more considerable part, there waa a
transfer of the passions and the intellectual activity to a
new cause.' They were completely identified with
Ohristianity, and to a certain degree actuated by its
principles, but they did not apprehend the beautiful
harmony which subsists between its doctrines and its
moral perfection. Its dogmatic purity was the sole
engroscing subject ; the unity of doctrine superseded
and obscured all other considerations, even of that
sublimer unity of principles and effects, of the loftiest
views of the divine nature with the purest conceptions
of human virtue. Faith not only overjiowered, but dis-
carded from her fellowship, Love and Peace. Every-
where there waa exaggeration of one of the constituent
elements of Christianity ; that exaggeration which is
the inevitable consequence of a strong impulse upon the
human mind. Wherever men feel strongly, they act
violently. The more speculative Christiana, therefore,
who were more inclined, in the deep and somewhat
selfish solicitude for their own salvation, to isolate them-
selves from the infected mass of manlcind, pressed into
the extreme of asceticism ; the more practical, who
were earnest in the desire of disseminating the blessii^
of religion throughout society, scrupled little to press
into their service whatever might advance their cause.

}

• "If," Bflid the dying Binhop of
Constantinople, "VDii would hnve ioi'

Ton bj the eounple nf his lift, and
improTc joo by the purity of his pre-

scpts. choa

Pnul 1 if B niin rencd
of the world, anil abla
to mriininin the interrits of the nli.
gion, your Bufllrngn muJt be given tc
Mnoedonim." Socr. E. G ii. 6,

Chap. V. THAN KELIGIODS REVOLUTION. 406

With both extremes, the dogmatical part of the religion
predominated. 'Ihe monliish believer imposed the same
Beverity upon the aberrations of the mind as upon the
appetites of the body ; and, in general, those who are
severe to themselvea, are both disposed, and think them-
selvea entitled, to enforce the same severity on others.
The other, as his sphere became more extensive, was
satisfied with an adhesion to the Christian creed, instead
of that total change of life demanded of the early Chris-
tian, and watched over with such jealous vigilance by
the mutual superintendence of a small society. The
creed, thus become the sole test, was enforced with all
the passion of intense zeal, and guarded with the most
subtle and scrupulous jealousy. In proportion to the
admitted importance of the creed, men became mote
sternly and exclusively wedded to their opinions. Thus
an antagonistio principle of fixelusiveneSB co-exieted
with the most comprehensive ambition. While they
swept in converts indiscriminately from the palace and
the public street; while the Emperor and the lowest of
the populace were alike admitted on little more than
the open profession of allegiance, they were satisfied if
the allegiance in this respect was blind and complete.
Hence a far larger admixture of human passions and of
the common vulgar incentives of action was infused into
the expanding Christian body. Men became Christians,
orthodox Christians, with little sacrifice of that which
Christianity aimed chiefly to extirpate. Yet, after all,
this imperfect view of Christianity had probably some
effect in concentrating the Christian community, and
holding it together by a new and more indissoluble bond.
The world divided into two parties. Though the shades
of Arianism, perhaps, if strictly decomposed, of Trini-
tarianism, were countless as the varying powers of con-

no ATHANASinS. .Book IU

€eption or expression in man, yet they were soon
consolidated into two compact masses. The semi-
Arians, who approximated so closely to the Nicene
creed, were forced back into the main body. Their fine
<iistinction8 were not seized by their adversaries, or by
the general understanding of the Christians. The bold
and decisive definitiveness of the Athanasian doctrine
admitted less discretion ; and no doubt, though political
vicissitudes had some influence on the final establish-
ment of their doctrines, the more illiterate and less
imaginative West was predisposed to the Athanasian
opinions by its natural repugnance to the more vague
and dubious theory. All, however, were enrolled
under one or the other standard, and the party which
triumphed, eventually would rule the whole Christian
world.

Even the feuds of Christiam'ty at this period, though
with the few more dispassionate and reasoning of the
Pagans they might retard its progress, in some re-
spects contributed to its advancement; they assisted
in breaking up that torpid stagnation which brooded
over the general mind. It gave a new object of ex-
.citement to the popular feeling. The ferocious and
ignorant populace of the large cities, which found a
new aliment in Christian faction for their mutinous
and sanguinary outbursts of turbulence, had almost
been better left to sleep on in the passive and undo-
structive quiet of Pagan indifference. They were dan-
gerous allies, more than dangerous — fatal to the purity
.of the Gospel.

Athanasius stands out as the prominent character of
the period in the history, not merely of Chris-
tianity, but of the world. That history is one
long controversy, the life of Athanasius one unwearied

ATHASA81U8.

411

And incessant strife.'' It is neither the serene course
of a. being elevated by his rehgion above the carea and
tumults of ordinary life, nor the restless activity ot one
perpetually employed in a conflict with the ignorance,
vice, and misery of an unconverted people. Tet even
now (so completely has this polemic spirit become
incorporated with Christianity) the memory of Athana-
sius is regarded by many wise and good men with
reverence, which, in Catholic countries, is actual adora-
tion, in Protestant, approaches towards it" It is impos-
sible, indeed, not to admire the force of intellect which he
centered on this minute point of theology, Ms intrepidity,
his constancy ; but had he not the power to allay the
feiid which his inexorable spirit tended to keep alive f
Was the term Consubstantialism absolutely essential to
Christianity? If a somewhat wider creed had been
accepted, would not the truth at least as soon and as
generally have prevailed ? Could not the commanding
or persnosive voice of Christianity have awed or charmed
the troubled waters to peace ?

But Athanasius, in exile, would consent to no peace
which did not prostrate his antagonists before his feet.
He had obtained complete command over the minds of
the western Emperors. The demand for his restoration
Ui his see was not an appeal to the justice, or to the
iratemal affection of Conatantiua ; it was a question of
peace or war. Constantius submitted ; he received the

Grosae ond saae leit (Mairti, 1827J,
and Meirman'i Atiua. The formei
is the work of ■ leiy powerful Roman
Catholic writer, latwnring la sbow

that all the dtal piinciplee of Chrif
tiaDit; were iovolred ia thii coatro-
Tersj; and atatlng me Me of tbe
question with consuminfltB BbQitf.
It ia the panegTric of s dutifbl mm on
him whom he calla the tkther ol
chordi theology, p. 304.

*ia CODSCIL AT ASTIOCH.

prelate, on hia return, witli courtesy, or rather with
&TOur and dintiactioQ. AthanasiuB now entered Alex-
^j, 331, andria at the head of a triumphal procession ;
Jf^J^^„ tbe bishops of his party resumed their sees;
wAiKM. j^ii Egypt returned to its obedien<;e ; but the
ij). am. more inflexible Syria still waged the war with
unallayed activity. A council was held at Tyre, in which
new chaises were framed against the Alexandrian pre-
late : — the naurpation of his see in defiance of hia condem-
nation by a council (the imperial power seema to have
been treated with no great respect,— for a prelate, it was
asaerted, deposed by a council, could only be restored by
the aame authority) ; violence and bloodshed during his
re-occupation of the see ; and malversation of sums of
money intended for the poor, but appropriated to hie
own use. A rival council at Alexandria at once acquitted
Athanaaius on all tliese points ; asserted his right to the
aee ; appealed to and avouched the universal rejoicings
at his restoration, and his rigid administration of the
funda entrusted to his care.''

A more august assembly of Christian prelates met in
^Mi. the presence of the Emperor at Antioch.
Anuoch. Ninety bishops celebrated the consecration of
a splendid edifice, called the Church of Gold. The
council then entered on the affairs of the church. A
creed was framed satisfactory to all, except that it seemed
carefully to exclude the term consubstantial or Homoou-
sion. The council ratified the decrees of that of Tyre,
with regard to Athanaaius. It is asserted on hia part
that the majority had withdrawn to their dioceses before
the introduction of this question, and that a factious

Crnr- V. COUNCIL AT AKTIOCH, 413

minority of forty prelates assumed and abused the autho-
rity of the coiiEcil. They proceeded to nominate a new
bishop of Alexandria. Pistus, who had before been
appointed to the see, was passed over in silence, pro-
bably as too inactive or unambitious for their purpose.
Gregory, a native of the wilder region of Cappadocia,
but educated under Athanaaiua himself in the more
polished schools of Alexandria, waa invested with this
important dignity. Alexandria, peacefiiUy reposing, it
is said, under the parental episcopate of Atbanaeius,
was suddenly startled by the appearance of an edict,
signed by the imperial prefect, announcing the degra-
dation of Athanasius, and the appointment of Gregory,
Scenes of savage conflict ensued ; the churches were
taken as it were by storm ; the priests of the Athana-
siau party were treated with the utmost indignity;
Tii'gins scourged; every atrocity perpetrated by un-
bridled multitudes, embittered by every shade of reli-
gious faction. The Alexandrian populace were always
ripe for tumult and bloodshed. The Pagans and the
Jews mingled in the fray, and seized the opportunity,
no doubt, of shewing their impartial animosity to both
parties ; though the Arions (and, as the original causes
of the tumult, not without joatiee) were loaded with tiie
unpopularity of tliis odious alliance. They arrayed
themselves on the side of the soldiery appointed to
execute the decree of the prefect; and the Arian
bishop is charged, not with much probability, with
abandoning the churches to tlieir pillage.

Athanasius fled ; a second time an exile, he took refuge
in the West. He appeared again at Rome, in aubbdum
the dominions and under the protection of an "^ "" ''™°-
orthodox Emperor ; for Constans, who, after the death
of Constantine, the first protector of Athanasius, had

414 USUjlPATION OF GBE60BT. Book Ul.

obtained the larger part of the empire belonging to his
murdered brother, was no less decided in his support of
the Nioene opinions. The two great Western prelates.
Hosius of Cordoya, eminent from his age and character,
and Julius, bishop of Borne, from the dignity of his see,
openly espoused his cause. Wherever Athanasins
resided, — at Alexandria, in Gaul, in Borne, — ^in general
the devoted clergy, and even the people, adhered with
unshaken fidelity to his tenets. Such was the com-
manding dignity of his character, such his power of pro-
foundly stamping his opinions on the public mind.

The Arian party, independent of their speculativo
opinions, cannot be absolved from the unchristian
heresy of cruelty and revenge. However darkly co-
loured, we cannot reject the general testimony to their
acts of violence, wherever they attempted to regain
csarpatton ^^^ authority. Gregory is said to have at--
ofGregwy. tempted to compel bishops, priests, monks,
and holy virgins, to Christian communion with a pre-
late thus forced upon them, by every kind of insult and
outrage; by scourging and beating with clubs: those
were fortunate who escaped with exile.® But if Alex-
andria was disturbed by the hostile excesses of the
Arians, in Constantinople itself the conflicting religious
parties gave rise to the first of those popular tumults
which so frequently, in later times, distracted and dis*
graced the city. Eusebius, formerly Bishop of Nico-
medi£^ the main support of the Arian party,
had risen to the episcopacy of the imperial
city. His enemies reproached the worldly ambition
which deserted an humbler for a more eminent see;

« AtlMoas. 0per,| p. 112, 149, 850, 352, and the ecclenastical historians

QUARREL AT CO\STaMTI.NOPLE. 415

but they were not lees inclined to contest this important
post with the utmost activity. At his diiath the Atha-
naaian party revived the claims of Paul, whom they
asserted to have been canonically elected and unjustly
deposed from the see ; the Arians supported BJnaiy
MaeedoDius, The dispute spread from the Omstimi-
church into the streets, from the clergy to the m-'iti.
populace ; blood was shed ; the whole city was in
arPQS on one part or the other.

The Emperor was at Autioch ; he commanded Her-
mogenea, who was appointed to the command of the
cavalry in Thrace, to pass through Conatautinople, and
expel the intruder Paul. Hermogenes, at the head of
his soldiery, advanced to force Paul from the chureh.
The populace rose ; the soldiera were repelled ; the
general took refuge in a house, which was instantly set
on tire ; the maagled body of Hermogeuea viaa dragged
through the streets, and at length cast into the sea.
Coustantins heard this extraordinary intelligence at
Antioch. The contempt of the imperial mandate ; the
murder of an imperial officer in the contested nomina-
tion of a bishop, were as yet so new in the annals of
the world, as to fill him with equal aetoniehment and
indignation. He mounted his horse, though it was
winter and the mountain-passes were dangerous and
difficult with snow ; he hastened with the utmost speed
to Constantinople. But the deep humiliation of the
senate and the heads of the people, who prostrated
themselves at his feet, averted his resentment: the
people were punished by a diminution of the usual
largess of com. Paul waa expelled ; but, as though
some blame adhered to botli the conflicting parties, the
election of Macedonius was not confirmed, although he
was allowed to exorcise the episcopal funt'tions. Paul

il8 TltlSlTAEIAS CONTRO\"ERST. Book IIT.

retired, first to Thessalonica, subsequently to the conrt
of Constant.

The remoter consequences of the AthanasiaQ con- I
EffwBotita troversy began to develope themselves at thia 1
^^USl^ early period. The Christianity of the East ]
laOieWiw, ^^j ^jig ■\^'e3t gradually assumed a dirergent
and independent character. Though, during a short
time, the Arianism of the Ostrogothic conquerors g&ve
a, temporary predominance in Italy to that creed, the J
West in general submitted, in unenquiring acquiescence,
to the TiinitarianisiQ of Athanasius, In the East, on I
the other hand, though the doctrines of Athanaeius' I
eventually obtained the superiority, the controversy I
gave birth to a long and unexhausted hne of subordi-
nate disputes. The East retained its mingled character
of Oriental speculativeness ai»d Gzeek subtlety. It
f^uld not abstain from investigating and analysing the
divine nature, and the relations of Christ and the Holy-
Ghost to the Supreme Being. Macedouianism, Ne&-
torianism, Eutychianism, with the fatal disputes re-
lating to the procession of the Holy Ghost during
almost the last hours of the Byzantine empire, may be
considered the lineal descendants of this prolific contn>-
veray. The opposition between the East and West of
itaelf tended to increase the authority of that prelate,
who assumed his acknowledged station as the bead and
representative of the Western churches. The com-
manding and popular part taken by the Bishop of
Home, in iavour of Athanaaius and his doctrines, ena-
bled him to stand forth in undisputed superiority, as at
once the chief of the Western episcopate and the
Aitumiiiu champion of orthodoxy. The age of Hoeius,
' '"""■ and his residence in a remote province, with-
dreiv the only competitor for this aiiperiorily. Athaiia*

CHIP. V. GENEBAL COCXCIL AT BAKDICA. -117

Bius took up his residence at Rome, and, under the pro-
tection of the Roman prelate, defied hia adversaries to a
new contest. Julius summoned the accusers Juiidb-
of Athanasius to plead the cause before a Kome.
council in Rome.' The Eastern prelates altogether
disclaimed his jurisdiction, and rejected his pretensions
to rejudge the cause of a bishop already condemned by
the council of Tyre. The answer of Julius is directed
rather to the justification of Athanasius than to the asser-
tion of his own authority. The synod of Rome solemnly
acquitted Athanasius, Paul, and all their syiodm
adherents. The Western Emperor joined in ^°™'
the sentiments of his clergy. A second council at
Milan, in the presence of Constans, confirmed ^,0,343.
the decree of Rome, Constans proposed to *'""™
his brother to convoke a general council of both em-
pires, A neutral or border ground was chosen for this
decisive conflict. At Sardica met one hundred aundi ot
prelates from the West, from the East only *j>. ws-a.
seventy-five.* Notwithstanding his age and infirmities,
Hosius travelled from the extremity of the empire : he
at once took the lead in the assembly ; and it is re-
markable that the Bishop of Rome, so zealous in the
cause of Athanasius, alleged an excuse for his absence,
which may warrant the suspicion that he waa unwilling
to be obscured in this important scene by the superior

' JuUns ii far from ansertiDg un^ tion. riwplfaiiiriv oHy rf t-wiimi*^
individnal nnthoritj, or pontifical •piijiijt 'louKlif ri kb*' iatiroif 6
»npreinacj. " Why do yoa olone Bi firt Tpori/ita tSi iy 'Pii^n
WISle?" "BeoiUK I represent the inKX-rjaias ixoiaris. Socr. E. H. ii.
^Mons of Uie biihopi of Italf." 15. OFa S) Twr ■w6.rttiy iraSfitorlai
E[Hit. Julian. AChaosa. Op. 1, 146. ' Ivrip uptHmiaimii Jul t^v &(fa>

The ecckaiutical hidorianB, how- | TaS Spivov. Soi. E. H. iii. 8.
«*er, in tits neit (snturf, asHrt that I t Bj »ine becoudI< then were IDi)
Rome claim«l n tight of ndjudica- , Westirn budiops : 73 Gut«in.
VOL. II. 2 K

COUNCIL AT PHILIPPOLIS.

>oiIB^*

authority of Hosiua. Five of the Western prelates,
among whom were Uraaciiis of Singidiinum and Valena
of Mursa, embraced the Arian cause : the Arians com-
plained of the defection of two bishops from their body,
who beti-ayed their secret counnela to their adTerearies.*
lu all these eouncUa, it appears not to have occmred,
that, religion being a matter of faith, the suffrages of
the majority could not posgjbly impose a creed upon n
conscientious minority. The question had been
often agitated to expect that it could be placed
new light

On matters of fact, the suffrages of the more nn-
merous party might have weight, in the personal con-
deniuation, for instance, or the acquittal of Athauasius ;
but as these suffrages could not convince the under-
standing of those who voted on the other aide, the
theological decisions must of necessity be rejected,
unless the minority would submit likewise to the humi-
liating confession of insincerity, ignorance, or precipi-
tancy in judgment.' The Arian minority did not await
this issue ; having vainly attempted to impede the pro-
gress of the council, by refusing to sanction the pre-
sence of persons excommunicated, they seceded to
RiviLcounqii Philippopolis in Thrace. In these two cities
P"ii8. sate the rival councils, each asserting itself

the genuine representative of Christendom, issuing
decrees, and anathematising their adversaries. The
Ariana are accused of maintaining their influence, even
in the East, by acts of great cruelty. In Adrianople,

^ Concilia L«bbe, vol. iii. AlhaDss. | bf the Wcitiirn. "Noyim legem in-
contr. Ariin. bo. j trnducute putaienint, at Orixalalea

> Thg OricDtal biihopa protnted K[riKii[ri ab OocidentiilibaK Judics.
Kgainit Itu uiumption of lupmnacf | rentor." Apml Hllu. Frtgm. iii.

RECONCILIATWN WITH ATHANASIUB. 419

in Alexandria, they enforced submiKsion to their tenets
by the scourge, and by heavy penaltiee/

The Western Coiincil ftt Milan accepted and ratified
the decrees of the conncil of Sardica, absolving Atha-
naaius of all criminality, and receiving his doctrines as
the genuine and exclusive truths of the Gospel. KMonciiia.
On a sudden, affairs took a new turn; Con- biiuhub-hh
stautius tlu'ew himself, as it were, at the feet «ji.3is.
of Athanasius, and in three successive letters entreated
him to resume his episcopal throne. The Emperor and
the prelate (who had delayed at first to obey, either
from fear or from pride, the flattering invitation), met
at Antioch with mutual espreBsions of respect and cor-
diahty." Constantius ordered all the accusations against
Athanasius to be erased from the registers of the city.
He commended the prelate to the people of Alexan-
dria in terms of courtly flattery, which harshly contrast
with his former, as well as with his subsequent, conduct
to Athanasius, The Arian bishop, Gregory, was dead,
and Athanasius, amid the universal joy, re-entered the
city. The bishops crowded from all parts to salute and
congratulate the prelate who had thug ti-iumphed over
the malice even of imperial enemies. Incense curletl
up in all the streets ; the city was brilliantly illu-
minated. It was an ovation by the admirers of Atha-
nasius ; it is said to have been a Christian ovation ;
alms were lavished on the poor ; every house resounded
with prayer and thanksgiving as if it were a church ;

: of Morwllui
tvhnni the Eunbisn party
tvlwllianieRi, wu

J20 MESTAN WAE.

the triumph of Athanasius was completed by the i
cantation of Ursacius and Valena, two of his :
powerful antagonists."

This sudden change in the policy of Constanlioa i
scarcely explicable upon the alleged i
It is ascribed to the detection of an infamoi
conspiracy against one of the Western bishops, depute
ou a mission to Constantius. The aged prelate ^
chained with incontinence, hut the accusation r
on its inventors. A mail of infamous character, Onaf
the wild ass, the chief conductor of the plot, o
detected, avowed himself the agent of Stephen, 1
Arian bishop of Autiocii. Stephen was igDomimoug
deposed from his see. Yet this single fact woi
scarcely have at once estranged the mind of Coiu
tins from the interests of the Arian party ; his e
quent conduct when, as Emperor of the whole y
he could again dare to display his deep-rooted hoetilifg
to Athanasios, induces the suspicion of pohtical r
Constantius was about to be embarrassed with tl
sian war; at this dangerous crisis, the a
tions of hia brother, not unmingled with wai
like menace, might enforce the expediency at least c
temporary reconciliation with Athauaaiua. Alter t
reconciliation and the triumph of Atbanosius, the p
tical troubles of three years suspended the religio
strife. The war of Persia brought some fame to 1
arms of Constantius ; and in the more honourable c
n^ii, o( racter, not of the antagonist, but the ave
cooiuia. i^f jjjg murdered brother, the surviving a
Constantine again united the East and West imder 1
sole dominion. Magnentius, who liad usurped

- Gi^. Nuian. Knc. Albinai, Athanas. Ht.I. Arian.

C«*r.V. BATTLE OF MUKSA. 421

Western Empire and mouDted the throne over the
bloody corpse of the murdered Constana, fell before the
avenging arm of Constantiua

The battle of Mursa, if we are to credit a writer
somewhat more recent, was no less fatal to the interests
of Athanaaius than to the arms of Magnen- wirwim
tins." Ursacius and Valens, after their re- *ji.3bi. °^
cantatioD, bad relapsed to Arianism. Valens was the
Bishop of Murso, and in the immediate neighbourhood
of that town was fought the decisive battle. Constan-
tius retired with Valens into the principal church, to
assist with his prayers rather than with his directions or
personal prowess, the success of his army. Bitticot
The agouy of his mind may be conceived, '*"'*'■
during the long suspense of a conflict on which the
Bovereignty of the world depended, and in which the
oonquerore lost more men than the vanquished.'' Valens
stood or knelt by hie side ; on a sudden, when the
Emperor was wrought to the highest state of agitation,
Valens proclaimed the tidings of his complete victory ;
intelligence communicated to the prelate by an angel
from heaven. Whether Valens had anticipated the
event by a bold fiction, or arranged some plan for
obtaining rapid information, he appeared from that
time to the Emperor as a man especially favoured by
Heaven, a prophet, and one of good omen. With
Valens Arianism reassumed its authority over the
vacillating mind of Constuntius,

But either the fears of the Emperor or the caution of
the Arian party, delayed yet for three or four years

■ Solpldoi SevBiiu, II. c 54. I llu goda on tbii mameutoui o>

r Magoeutiui ii mid bj Zouofm, Lib. liii. I. il. p. lli, 17.
o hare ucrltioed a girl, to fiopitiale \

422

MACELONIUS EEIKSTATED.

to execute their revenge on AthanaRios. They began
AjtMi. "i*^ * '^^ illustrious victim. Philip, the
""'■ prefect of the East, received instructiona to
pxpel Paul, and to replace Macedoniua on the epiapopal
throne of Congtantinople. Philip remembered the fata
of Hermogenea ; he secured himself in the thermse ot J
Zeuxippus, and summoned the prelate to his preseDceo I
He then communicated his instructions, and frightened 1
or persuaded the aged Paul to consent to be secretly
ftSiS'S''"™' *ra''spo''t®<l ™ ^ '™*t ^^^^ *^® Bosphorus. Tti
^f'^f^' the morning, Philip appeared in his car, with
p|*-^ "j™*"- Macedonius by his side in the pontifical attire f I
<uwd. he drove directly to the church, but the 8ol«

diers were obliged to hew their way through the densel
and resisting crowd to the altar. Macedonius passed I
over the murdered bodies (three thousand are said to I
have fallen) to the throne of the Christian prelate, f
Paul was carried in chains first to Emesa, afterwards to
a wild town hi the deserts about Mount Taurus, He
had disappeared from the sight of his followers, and it
is certain that he died in those remote regions. The
Arians gave out that he died a natural death. It was
the general belief of the Athanasiaus that his death
was hastened, and even that he had been strangled by
the hands of the prefect Philip.'

But before the decisive blow was struck against
Athanasius, Constantius endeavoured to subdue the
West to the Arian opinions. The Emperor, released
from the dangers of war, occnpied his triumphant leisure
in Christian controversy. He seemed determined to
establish bis sole dominion over the religion as well as I

Chap, V. NEW CHAEGE8 AGAINST ATHANASIUS. 423

the civil obedience of his Bubjects. The Western
bishops firmly opposed the conqueror of Mag- codicils of
nentius. At the councils, first of Arlea and Mtl^.""''
afterwards of Milan, they refused to subscribe *■"■ ^^- ^"■
the condemnation of Athanasiua, or to communicate with
the Arians. Laberius, the new Bishop of Eome, p,r«cntfon
refused the timid and disingenuous compro- bJ^'^J''
miae to which his representative atr Aries, Vin- ^"'■
tent, deacon of Home, bad agreed — assent to the condem-
nation of Atbanasiua, i£, at the same time, a decisive
anathema should be issued against the tenets of Ariua.
At Milan, the bishops boldly asserted the independence
of the church upon the empire. The Athanasian party
forgot, or chose not to remember, that they had unani-
mously applauded the interference of Constantine,
when, after the Nicene council, he drove the Artan
bisbope into exile. Thus it htts always beeu : the sect
or party which has the civil power in its favour is
embarrassed with no doubts aa to the legality of its
interference ; when hostile, it resists as an unwarrant-
able aggression on its own freedom, that which it has
not scrupled to employ against its adversaries.

The new charges against Athanasius were of very
different degrees of magnitude and probability, s™ cbuEO
He was accused of exciting the hostility of Aihs^ia..
Constans against his brother. The fact that Constans
bad threatened to reinstate the exiled prelate by force
of arms might give weight to this charge ; but the sub-
sequent reconciliation, the gracious reception of Atha-
nasius by the Emperor, the public edicts in Ms favour,
had, in all justice, cancelled the guilt, if there were
really guilt, in this undue influence over the mind of
Constans. He was accused of treasonable correspondence
with the usurper Magnentius. Athanasius repelled this

COC^XIL (IK MILAN.

(iii.-^

ehiirge with natural radignation. He mnst have been a
monster of ingratitude, worthy a tbousaod deaths, if he
had leagued with the murderer of his benefactor, ConataQB.
He defied his enemies to the production of any letters ;
he demanded the severest investigation, the strictest
examination, of hia own secjetaries or those of Mngnen-
tius. The descent is rapid from these serious chaises
to that of having officiated in a new and splendid^
church, the Cfesarean, without the permission of the
Emperor ; and the exercising a paramount and almoet
monarchical authority over the churches along tha
whole course of tlie Nile, even beyond bis legitdmate-
jurisdiction. The first was strangely construed into
intentional disrespect to the Emperor ; the latter migbt
fairly be attributed to the zeal of Athanaaius for the.
extension of Christianity. Some of these points might'
appear beyond tlie jurifldiction of an ecclesiastical ttH'-
bunal ; and in the council of Milan there seems to
have been an inclination to separate the cause of
Athanasius from tbnt of bis doctrine. As at Arle^
some proposed to abandon the person of Athanasius to
the will of the Emporor, if a general condemnatioii
should be passed against the tenets of Arius.

Three hundred ecclesiastics formed the council <rf'
conncu of Milan. Few of these were from the East. The
"""■ Bishop of Kome did not appear in person to
lead the orthodox party. His chief representative waa
Lucifer of Cagliari, a man of ability, but of violent
temper and unguarded language. The Arian faction
was headed hy Ursacius and Valens, the old adversaries
of Athanasius, and by the Emperor himself. Constan-
tius, that the proceedings might take place more imme-
diately under his own superintendence, adjourned the
assembly from the church to the palace. This ui>

CBir. V. COUNCIL OF MILAN. 425

Beemly intrusion of a layman in the deliberations of tlie
clergy, unfortunately, was not without precedent Those
who had proudly hwiled the entrance of Constantine
into tlie synod of Niceea could not, consistently, depre-
cate the presence of hia son at Milan.

The controversy became a personal question betweeji
the Emperor and his refractory subject. The
Emperor descended into the arena, and min-
gled in all the fury of the conflict. Conatautius was
not content with assuming the supreme place as Em-
peror, or interfering in the especial province of the
bishopa^the theological question — he laid claim to
direct inspiration. He was commissioned by a vision
from Heaven to restore peace to the afflicted church.
The scheme of doctrine which he proposed was asserted
by the Western bishops to be strongly tainted with
Arianiam. The prudence of the Athanaeian party was
not equal to their firmness and courage. The obse-
quious and almost adoring court of the Emperor must
have stood aghast at the audacity of the ecclesiastical
synod. Their language was that of vehement invective,
rather than dignified dissent or calm remonstrance,
Constantius, concealed behind a curtain, listened to the
debate ; he heard his own name coupled with that of
heretic, of Antichrist, His indignation now knew no
bounds. He proclaimed himself the champion of tlie
Arian doctrines, and the accuser of Athanasius. Yet
flatteries, persuasions, bribes, menaces, penalties, exiles,
were necessary to extort the aasent of the resolute
assembly. Then they became conscious of the impro-
priety of a lay Emperor's intrusion into the debates of
an ecclesiastical synod. They demanded a free council,
in which the Emperor should neither preside in person
uor by his commissary. They lifted up their hands,

FALL OP LIBEarCS — OF HOSICS.

ftiid entreated the ai^ry ConaUmtiaa not to mingle
the »Sain of the etate and the chnrch.' Three |welata^
Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of Vercellffi, DioDymos cf
Hilao, Here sent into banishment, to places remote
from each other, and the most inhospitable r^tgiong of
the empire. Liberins, the Roman pontiff, rejected willt
disdain the presents of the Emperor; he resisted """
equal firmness his persuasions and his acts of
lence.
Though his palace in Rome was carefoUy closed
p^,o, garrisoned by some of his faithful flock. Lil
Litartiu. ijeriog was seized at length, and carried
Milan. He withstood, somewhat contemptuonaly,
personal entreaties and ailments of the Em
He rejected with disdain the imperial offers of money
for his journey, and to!d the Emperor to keep it to pay
hia army, The same offer was made by Eiisebius the
eunuch : — " Does a eacrilegioua robber like thee think
to give alms to me, as to a mendicant ? " Tlie Bishop of
Rome was exiled to Berbea, a city of Thrace. An Arian
prelate, Felix, was forced upon the unwilling pity.

But two years of exile broke the spirit of Liberioa.
He began to liEten to the advice of the Arian bishop of
Berbea; the solitude, the cold climate, and the dis-
comforts of this uncoDgenial region, had more effect
than the presents or the menaces of the Emperor.
Pope Liberiua signed the Arian formulary of Sinnimn ;
he assented to the condemnation of Athanaaius, The
fti, of fall of the aged Hosius increased the triumph
HortBi. gf (jjg Arians. 8ome of the Catholic writers
reproach with undue bitterness the weakness of an old

' M)|lli iiia/ilayfir t^r 'Ptt/idlinir I luJ Mod. c. 34, 3B. Compnre c. 53

CONSTANTIUS AT EOME. 427

man, whose nearer approach to the grave, they assert,
ought to have confirmed him in hia inalienable fidelity
to Christ. But even Christianity has no power over
that mental imbecility which accompanies the decay of
physical strength : and this act of feebleness ought not,
for an instant, to be set against the unblemished virtue
of a whole life.

Constantius, on his visit to Rome, was astonished by
an address, presented by some of the principal R-reption of
females of the city in their most splendid »iKon»
attire, to entreat the restoration of Liberiiis. The Em-
peror offered to re-admit Liberius to a co-ordinate
authority with the Arian bishop, Felix. l"he females
rejected with indignant disdain this dishonourable com-
promise ; and when Constantius commanded a similar
proposition to be publicly read in the circus at the thne
of games, he was answered by a general shout, " One
God, one Christ, one bishop."

Had then the Christians, if this story be true, already
overcome their averaion to the public games ? or are ne
to suppose that the whole populace of Rome took an
intorest in the appointment of the Christian pontiff?

Athanasius awaited in tranquil dignity the bursting
Btorm, He had eluded the imperial summons Orfe™ to
to appear at Milan, upon the plea that it was Auunuitu.
ambiguous and obscure. Constantins, either from some
lingering remorse, from reluctance to have his new
condemnatory ordinances confronted with his favour-
able, and almost adulatory, testimonies to the inno-
cence of Athanasius, or from fear lest a religious insur-
rection in Alexandria and Egypt should embarrass the
government, and cut off the supplies of com from the
Eastern capital, refused to issue any written order for
the deposal and expulsion of Athanasius. He jhose.

428 TUMULT IN CHXJECH OP ALEXANDRIA. Book Itt

apparently, to retain the power, if convenient, of dis-
owning bis emiasaries. Two secretariea were despatched
with a verbal message, commanding the prehite's abdi-
cation. Atlianasius treated the imperial oflicera with
the utmost courtesy ; but respectfully demanded their
wiitten inatnictionB. A kind of suspension of hostilities
seems to have been agreed upon, till further instmo
tions could be obtained from the Emperor. Bat in tJie
mean time, Syrianus, the duke of the province, was
drawing the troops fi'om all parts of Libya and Egypt
to invest and occupy the city. A force of 5000 men
was thought necessary to depose a peaceable Christian
Bishop. The great events in the life of Athanasiua, sa
we have already seen on two occasions, seem, either
designedly ur of themselves, to take a highly dramatic
form. It was midnight, and the archbishop, surrounded
by the more devout of his flock, was performing the
solemn ceremony, previous to the sacramental service
of the next day, in the church of St Theonaa. Sud-
denly the sound of trumpets, the trampling of steeds,
Tginuitin the clash of arms, the bursting the bolts of
AicMrfrti. the doors, interrupted the silent devotions of
the assembly. The archbishop oa his throne, in the
depth of the choir, on which fell the dim light of the
lamps, beheld the gleaming arms of the soldiery, as
they buret into the nave of the church. The arch-
bishop, as the ominous sounds grew louder, commanded
the chanting of the 135th (IStitli) Psahn, The choris-
ters* voices swelled into the solemn strain : — " Oh, give
thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious;" the people
took up the burthen, "For his mercy endureth for
ever 1 " The clear, full voices of the congregation rose
over the wild tumult, now vrithout, and now within,
the I'hurcli.

GEOEGE OF CAPPADOCIA. 429

A diflcliarge of arrows commeDced the conflict ; and
Athanasius calmly exhorted his people to eoDtinue their
only defensive measures, their prayers to their Almighty
Protector. Syriamia at the same time ordered the
Boldiers to advance. The cries of the wounded ; the
groans of those who were trampled down in attempting
to force their way out through the soldiery ; the shouts
of the assailants, mingled in wild and melancholy up-
roar. But before the soldiers had reached the end of
the sanctuary, the pious disobedience of his clergy and
of a body of monks, hurried the aivhbishop by some
secret passage out of the tumult. His escape appeared
little less than miraculous to his faithful followers. The
riches of the altar, the sacred ornaments of the cliurch,
and even the consecrated virgins, were abandoned to
the licence of an exasperated soldiery. The Catholics in
Yain drew up an address to the Emperor, appealing to his
justice against this sacrilegious outrage ; they suspended
the arms of tlie soldiery, which had been left on the floor
of the church, as a reproachful memorial of the violence.
Constantius confirmed the acts of his officers.'

The Arians were prepai-ed to replace the deposed
prelate; their choice fell on another Cappa- Gwrgeot
docian more savage and unprincipled than the '^h™'"^-
former one. Constantius commended George of Cappa-
docia to the people of Alexandria, as a prelate above
praise, the wisest of teachers, the iittest guide to tlie
kingdom of heaven. His adversaries paint him in the
blackest colours ; the son of a fuller, lie had been in
turns a parasite, a receiver of taxes, a bankrupt. Igno-
rant of letters, savage in manuers, he was taken up,

430 GEOKGE OF CAPPADOOIA. Book M

while leading a vagabond life, by the Ariaii prelate of
Antioch, and made a priest before he was a ChrisUaiL
He employed the collections gathered for the poor in
bribing the eunuchg of the palace. But be possessed,
no doubt, great worldly ability ; he was without fear and
without remorse. He entered Alexandria en™oned by
the troops of Syrianus. His presence let loose the rabid
violence of party ; the Arians exacted ample vengeance
for their long period of depression; houses were plun-
dered ; monasteries burned ; tombs broken open, to
search for concealed Athanaaians, or for the prelate
himself, who still eluded their pursuit ; bishops were
insulted ; vu-gins scourged ; the soldiery encouraged to
break up every meeting of the Catholics by violence,
and even by inhuman tortures. The Duke Sebastian,
at the head of 3000 troops, charged a meeting of the
Athaoasian Christians. No barbarity was too revolting ;
they are said to have employed instruments of torture
to compel them to Christian unity with the Arians ;
females were scourged with the prickly branches of the
palm-tree. The Pagans readily transfeiTed tlieir alle-
giance, so far as allegiance was demanded ; while the
savage and ignorant among them rejoiced in the occa-
sion for plunder and cruelty. Others hailed these feuds,
and almost anticipated the triumphant restoration of
their own religion. Men, they thought, must grow
weary and disgusted with a religion productive of so
much crime, bloodshed, and misery. Echoing back the
language of the Athanasians, they shouted out — " Long
life to the Emperor Constantius, and the Arians who
have abjured Christianity." And Christianity they seem
to have abjured, though not in the sense intended by
their adversaries. They had abjured all Christiaa
humanity, holiness, and peace.

Chap. V. GEORGE OP CAPPADOCIA. 433

The avarice of George was equal to his cruelty-
Exactions were necessary to .mamtain his interest with
the eunuchs, to whom he owed his promotion. The
prelate of Alexandria forced himself into the secular
affairs of the city. He endeavoured to secure a mono-
poly of the nitron produced in the lake Mareotie, of the
salt-works, and of the papyrus. He became a manufac-
tui'er of those painted coffins which were still in nse
among the Egyptians. Once he was expelled by a
sudden insurrection of the people, who surrounded tlie
church, in which he was officiating, and threatened to
tear him in pieces. He took refuge in the court, which
was then at Sirmium, and a few months beheld him
reinstated by the command of his faithful patron the
Emperor." A reinstated tyrant is, in general, the most
cruel oppressor ; and, unless pai'ty violence has black-
ened the chai'acfer of George of Cappadocia beyond
even its ordinary injustice, the addition of revenge, and
the liaughty sense of impunity, derived from the im-
perial protection, to the evil passions already developed
in bis soul, rendered him a still more intolerable scoui^e
to the devoted city.

Everywhere the Athanasiau bishops wero expelled
from their sees ; they were driven into banishment.
The desert was constantly sounding with the hymns of
tJiese pious and venerable exiles, as they passed along,
loaded with chains, to the remote and savage place of
tlieir destination ; many of them bearing the scars, and
wounds, and mutilations, which had been inflicted upon
them by their barbarous persecutors, to enforce their
compliance with the Ariau doctrines.

Athanasius, alter many strange adventures; having

• He WM Ht Slrmlum, liny. J59 : reiiloreil in October.

Ua BSCAPE UP ATOANASIUS.

b»Ji concealc-d in a dry cistern, and in the rhaiuber
bt^imi of a beaatifnl woid&q, who attended him with
AouMii. the moet officious devotion (his awful chanM:ter
was not even tinged with the breath irf snepicion), foDnd
refuge at length among the monks of the
desert Egypt is bordered on all sides by
wastes of sand, or by barren rocks, broken into cavta
and intricate passes ; and all these solitudes were now
peopled by the fanatic foilowere of tlie hermit AntonT.
They were all devoted to the opinions and attached to
the person of Athanasius. The anirterities of the pirelate
extorted their admiration : as he had been the great
example of a dignified, aotive, and zealous bishop, so
was he now of an ascetic and mortified solitary. The
most inured to self-inflicted tortures of mind and body
foond themselves equalled, if not outdone, in their faats
and austerities by the lofty Patriarch of Alexandria.
Among these devoted adherents, bis security was com-
plete : their passionate reverence admitted not the fear
of trfrachery. The more active and inquisitive the
search of his enemies, he had only to plunge deeper
into the inaccessible and inscrutable desert From this
solitude Athanasius himself is supposed sometimes to
hare issued forth, and, passing the seas, to have tra-
versed even parts of the West, animating his foUoweiB,
and confirming the faith of his whole widely-dissemi-
nated party. His own language implies his personal,
tlinugh secret presence at the councils of Selencia and
liimini.*

From the desert, unquestionably, came forth many
of those writings which must have astonished the
Heathen world by then- unprecedented boldness. For

■ AUann. Oper, vol. i, p. 869. Compsra TiUemoal. Vie .i'.\!li.iu.i«.

Chap. V,

niLAKT OP POICTIEES.

133

the first time since the foundation of the empire, the
Government was more or less publicly assailed in ad-
dresses, which arraigned its measures as unjust and as
transgressing its legitimate authority, and which did not
spare the person of the reigning Emperor. In the West,
as well as in the East, Constantius was assailed with
equal freedom of invective. The book of Hiiaiyof
Hilary of Poictiers against Constantius is said ^oicuers.
not to have been made public till after the death of the
Emperor ; but it was most likely circulated among the
Catholics of the West ; and the author exposed himself
to the activity of hostile informers, and the indiscretion
of fanatical friends. The Emperor, in that book, is de-
clared to be Antichrist, a tyrant, not only in secular, but
likewise in religious affairs ; the sole object of his reign
was to make a free gift to the devil of the whole world,
for which Christ had suffered.'' Lucifer of Cagliari,

y ** Nihil prorsns aliud ^t, quaxn
at orbem terrarum, pro quo Christus
passus est, diabolo condonaret." Adv.
Constant, c. 15. Hilary's highest
indignation is excited by the gentle
and insidious manner with which he
confesses that Constantins endeavoured
to compass his unholy end. He would
not honour them with the dignity of
martyrs, but he used the prevailing
persuasion of bribes, flatteries, and
Honours — ** Non dorsa ciedit, sed ven-
trem palpat ; non trudit carcere ad
libertatem, sed intra palatium honorat
ad servitutem ; non latent vexat, sed
cor occupat .... non contendit ne
vincatur, sed adulatur at dominetar."
There are several other remarkable
passages in this tract. Constantius
wished to confine the creed to the
language of Scripture. Thi« was re-

VOL. IL

jected, as infringing on the authority
of the bishops, and the forms of Apos-
tolic preaching. ** Nolo, inquit, verba
quae non scripta sunt did. Hoc tandem
rogo, quia episoopis jubeat et quis apos-
tolicie prsedicationis vetet formam ? "
c. 16. Among the sentences ascribed
to the Arians, which so much shocked
the Western bishops, there is one which
is evidently the argument of a strong
anti-materialist asserting the sole
existence of the Father, and that the
terms of son and generation, &c, are
not to be received in a literal sense.
** Erat Deus quod est. Pater non erat,
quia neque ei filius; nam si filius,
necesse est ut et foemina sit," &c. One
phrase has a singularly Oriental, I
would say, Indian cast. ** How much
soever the Son expands himself towards
the knowledge of the Father, so moch

2 F

434

LUCIFER OF CAGLIARI.

Book III.

whose violent temper afterwards distracted the Western
Lucifer of church with a schism, is now therefore repu-
^^**^* diated by the common consent of all parties.
But Athanasius speaks in ardent admiration of the in-
temperate writings of this passionate man, and once
describes him as inflamed by the spirit of God. Lucifer,
in his banishment, sent five books full of the most virU'
lent invective to the Emperor. Constantius — ^it was the
brighter side of his religious character — received these
addresses with almost contemptuous equanimity. He
sent a message to Lucifer, to demand if he was the
author of these works. Lucifer replied not merely by
an intrepid acknowledgment of his former writings, but
by a sixth, in still more unrestrained and exaggerated
language. Constantius was satisfied with banishing hin^
to the Thebaid. Athanasius himself, who in his public
vindication addressed to Constantius, maintained the
highest respect for the imperial dignity, in his Epistle
to the Solitaries gives free vent and expression to his
vehement and contemptuous sentiments. His recluse
friends are cautioned, indeed, not to disclose the dan-
gerous document, in which the tyrants of the Old
Testament, Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, are contrasted,

the Faiiier super-expands himself, lest
he should be known by the Son."
*' Quantum enim Filius se extendit
cognoscere Patrem, tantum Pater
superextendit se, ne coguitus Filio
sit." c. 13. The parties, at least in
the West, were speaking two totally
distinct languages. It would be unjust
to Hilaiy not to acknowledge the
beautiful and Christian sentiments
scattered through his two former
addresses to Constantius, which are
6rm, but respectful; and if rigidly,

yet sincerely, dogmatic. His plea for
toleration, if not very consistently
maintained, is expressed with great
force and simplicity. "Deus c(^i»
tionem sui docuit potius quam exegit.
. . . Deus universitatis est Dominus ;
non requirit coactam confessionem.
Nostrft potius non su& caus& vene*
randus est ... . simplicitate quae*
rendus est, confessione discendus e^
charitate amandus est, timore vene*
randus est, voluntatis probitate reti*
nendus est.** Lib. i. c 6.

Chap. V, CHUBCH AND STATE. 435

to his disadvantage, with the base, the cruel, the hypo-
critical Constantius. It is curious to observe this new
element of freedom, however at present working in a
concealed, irregular, and, perhaps, still guarded manner,
mingling itself with, and partially up-heaving, the
general prostration of the human mind. The Christian,
or, in some respects, it might be more justly said, the
hierarchical principle, was entering into the constitution
of human society, as an antagonistic power to that of the
civil sovereign. The Christian community was no longer
a separate republic, governed mthin by its own laws,
yet submitting, in all but its religious observances, to
the general ordinances. By the establishment of Chris-
tianity under Constantine, and the gradual reunion of
two sections of mankind into one civil society, those two
powers, that of the Church and the State, became co-
ordinate authorities, which, if any difiference should arise
between the heads of the respective supremacies, — ^if the
Emperor and the dominant party in Christendom should
take opposite sides, led to inevitable collision. This
crisis had ah'eady arrived. An Arian emperor was
virtually excluded from a community in which the
Athanasian doctrines prevailed. The son of Constantine
belonged to an excommunicated class^ to whom the
dominant party refused the name of Christians. Thus
these two despotisms, both founded on opinion (for
obedience to the imperial authority was rooted in the
universal sentiment), instead of gently counteracting
and mitigating each other, came at once into direct and
angry conflict. The Emperor might with justice begin
to suspect that, instead of securing a peaceful and sub-
missive ally, he had raised up a rival or a master ; for
the son of Constantine was thus in his turn disdainfully
ejected from the society wnich his father had incor-

2f2

4;JG MUTUAL ACCLSATIOKS OF CEUELTY. Bcnk

[wrafed ivilli the empire. It may be donbted how tat
the violences and barbarities ftscribed by the Catholics
lo their Arian foea may be attributed to the indignation
of the civil power at this new and determined resistance.
Thougli CoEstantius might himself feel or affect a com-
passionate disdain at these imuaual attacks on his peraon
and dignity, the general feeling of the Heathen popula*
tion, and of many among the local governors, might
resist this contumacious contempt of the supreme aii>-
thority. It is difficult otherwise to account for ths,
general tumults excited by these disputes in Alexandria^ '.
in Constantinople, and in Itome, where at least a very
OTUsiderable part of the population had no concern is
the religious quarrel. The old animosity against Chris-
tianity would array itself under the banners of one ot
the conflicting parties, or take up the cause of the
insulted sovereignty of the Kmperor. The Athanasians
constantly assert that the Arians courted, or at least
did not decline, the invidious alliance of the Pagans.

But in truth, in the horrible cruelties perpetrated
MntMi during these unhappy divisions, it was the
iifcmeii/. same savage ferocity of manners, which half a.
century before had raged against the Christian church,
which now apparently raged in its cause.* The abstruse

farH

ics ^1

■ See the deposiTJoDs of the bMiops
iiasembleil at Sardica, of tlis riolenco
which the; bad themselves endured t
Ihe hands of the Amos. "Aliiautei
gladioruni aigna, pt^as

Htendebant. Alii s

r. Et hi

uci'udatffi qnerdbantr
l^obiEtf tatihcabantur viri. Bed d«
eccleaiis omnibna electi prnpter quaa
hue GODVeDenmt, rea gestas edocebttDt,
militea armntos, populos cum fostibus,
iudirum mlnas, faliaruin literamoi

suppositJoueB. ... Ad tusc virginna
DudaUDDes, incendia cccleslaram. otu
ceres adrersoB mmiBtroB Dei." HiUr,
frapn. Op. Hist, ii, o. *.

The Amna reUrt the aarae aixu».
tioDs of violence, cruelty, and peraecu-
tiOD, sgunst Athanasiua. Thej mjr— ..
'^Per Tiin,|»rc.'vdem,perbellaTn, Alex-
aodrmorum eccluiaa dcpnedatus ;" and
this, "per pugnas et cades ^mtiliUfn."
DecretumSjnodiOricnlalium Eplscopo-
rum apuii Ssrdicnm, apud S. Hilarina,

Chap. V. MUTUAL ACCUSATIONS OF CRUELTY.

437

tenets of the Christian theology became the ill-under-
stood, perhaps unintelligible, watchwords of violent and
disorderly men. The rabble of Alexandria and other
cities availed themselves of the commotion to give loose
to their suppressed passion for the excitement of plunder
and bloodshed. How far the doctrines of Christianity
had worked down into the populace of the great cities
cannot be ascertained, or even conjectured ; its spirit
had not in the least mitigated their ferocity and inhu-
manity. If Christianity is accused as the immediate
exciting cause of these disastrous scenes, the predis-
posing principle was in that uncivilised nature of man,
which not merely was unallayed by the gentle and
humanising tenets of the Gospel, but, as it has per-
petually done, pressed the Gospel itself, as it were, into
its own unhallowed service.

The severe exclusiveness of dogmatic theology at-
tained its height in this controversy. Hitherto, the
Catholic and heretical doctrines had receded from each
other at the first outset, and drawn ofi* to opposite and
irreconcileable extremes. The heretics had wandered
away into the boundless regions of speculation; they
had diflfered on some of the most important elementary
principles of belief; they had rarely admitted any
common basis for argument. Here the contendiug par-

** Immensa autem confluxerat ad Sar>
dicam multitudo sceleratorum omnium
et perditorum, adventantium de Con-
stantinopoli, de Alexaudrift, qui rei
homicidiorum, rei sanguinis, rei csedis,
rei latrociniorum, rei praedarum, rei
spcdiorum, ne&ndorumque omnium
saciilegiorum et criminum rei; qui
altaria confregerunt, eoclesias incen-
derunt, dc mosque priratorum com-

pilaverunt ; pro&natores mysteilonim,
proditoresque sacramentorum Christi;
que impiam sceleratamque haereticorum
doctrinam contra eoclesise fidem asse-
rentes, sapientissimos presbyteros Dei,
diaconos, sacerdotes, atrociter demao*
taverunt." Ibid. 19. And this protest,
full of these tremendous charges, was
signed by the eighty seceding Eastern
bishopA.

438 ATHANASIUS AS A WRITER. Book ni.

ties set out from nearly the same principles, admitted
the same authority, and seemed, whatever their secret
bias or inclination, to diflfer only on the import of one
word. Their opinions appeared to be constantly ap-
proximating, yet found it impossible to unite. The
Athanasians taunted the Arians with the infinite varia-
tions in their belief : Athanasius recounts no less than
eleven creeds. But the Arians might have pleaded
their anxiety to reconcile themselves to the church, their
earnest solicitude to make every advance towards a
reunion, provided they might be excused the adoption
of the one obnoxious word, the Homoousion, or Consub-
stantialism. But the inflexible orthodoxy of Athanar
sius will admit no compromise ; nothing less than
complete unity, not merely of expression, but of mental
conception, will satisfy the rigour of the ecclesiastical
dictator, who will permit no single letter, and, as far as
he can detect it, no shadow of thought, to depart from
his peremptory creed. He denounces his adversaries,
for the least deviation, as enemies of Christ ; he presses
them with consequences drawn from their opim'ons;
and, instead of spreading wide the gates of Christianity,
he seems to unbar them with jealous reluctance, and to
admit no one without the most cool and inquisitorial
scrutiny into the most secret arcana of his belief.

In the writings of Athanasius is embodied the per-
Athanasiiu fcctiou of polcmic diviuity. His style, indeed,
aa a writer, j^^g ^^ splendour, uo softucss, nothing to kindle
the imagination, or melt the heart. Acute, even to
subtlety, he is too earnest to degenerate into scholastic
trifling. It is stem logic, addressed to the reason of
those who admitted the authority of Christianity. There
is no dispassionate examination, no candid philosophio
inquiry, no calm statement of his adversaries' case^ no

Chap. V. \THANASIUS AS A WRITER. 439

liberal acknowledgment of the infinite difficulties of the
subject, scarcely any consciousness of the total insuffi-
ciency of human language to trace the question to its
depths; aU is peremptory, dictatorial, imperious; the
severe conviction of the truth of his own opinions, and
the inference that none but culpable motives, either of
pride, or strife, or ignorance, can blind his adversaries
to their cogent and irrefragable certainty. Athanasius
walks on the narrow and perilous edge of orthodoxy
with a firmness and confidence which it is impossible
not to admire. It cannot be doubted that he was
deeply, intimately, persuaded that the vital power and
energy, the truth, the consolatory force of Christianity,
entirely depended on the unquestionable elevation of the
Saviour to the most absolute equality with the Parent
Godhead. The ingenuity with which he follows out his
own views of the consequences of their errors is wonder-
fully acute ; but the thought constantly occurs, whether
a milder and more conciliating tone would not have
healed the wounds of afflicted Christianity ; whether his
lofty spirit is not conscious that his native element is
that of strife rather than of peace.*

Though nothing can contrast more strongly with the
expansive and liberal spirit of primitive Christianity
than the repellent tone of this exclusive theology, yet
this remarkable phasis of Christianity seems to have
been necessary, and doubtless not without advantage to
the permanence of the religion. With the civilisation
of mankind, Christianity was about to pass through the
ordeal of those dark ages which followed the irruption
of the barbarians. During this period, Christianity was

* At a later period, Athanasius
Mems to have been less rigidly exdu-

sive against the Semi- Arians. Compare
Mdhler, ii. p. 230.

440 THE ATHANASIAN CONTEOVEEST. Book IH

to subsist as the conservative principle of social order
and the sacred charities of life> the sole, if not always
faithful, guardian of ancient knowledge, of letters, and
of arts. But in order to preserve its own existence, it
assumed, of necessity, another form. It must have a
splendid and imposing ritual to command the barbarous
minds of its new proselytes, and one which might be
performed by an illiterate priesthood ; for the mass of
the priesthood could not but be involved in the general
darkness of the times. It must likewise have brief and
definite formularies of doctrine. As the original lan-
guages, and even the Latin, fell into disuse, and before
the modem languages of Europe were suflSciently formed
to admit of translations, the sacred writings receded
from general use ; they became the depositaries of
Christian doctrine, totally inaccessible to the laity, and
Necessity almost as much so to the lower clergy. Creeds

of creeds

during the therefore became of essential importance to
ieuturies. comprcss the leading points of Christian doc-
trine into a small compass. And as the barbarous and
ignorant mind cannot endure tlie vague and the inde-
finite, so it was essential that the main points of doctrine
should be fixed and cast into plain and emphatic pro-
positions. The theological language was firmly esta-
blished before the violent breaking up of society ; and
no more was required of the barbarian convert than
to accept with unenquiring submission the establislied
formulary of the faith, and gaze in awe-struck venera-
tion at the solemn ceremonial.

The Athanasian controversy powerfully contributed
infloenoe of to cstabUsh the supremacy of the Eoman pon-
ronuSJS^ tiflf. It became almost a contest between
^^thofthe Eastern and Western Christendom; at least
papal power. ^^ ^^g^ ^^ neither divided like the East, not

submitted with the same comparatively willing obedience

Chap. V. GROWTH OP PAPAL POWER. 441

to the domination of Arianism under the imperial
authority. It was necessary that some one great prelate
should take the lead in this internecine strife. The
only Western bishop whom his character would designate
as this leader was Hosius, the Bishop of Cordova. But
age had now disqualified this good man, whose modera-
tion, abilities, and probably important services to Chris-
tianity in the conversion of Constantine, had recom-
mended him to the common acceptance of the Christian
world, as president of the council of Nicsea. Where this
acknowledged superiority of character and talent was
wanting, the dignity of the see would command the
general respect ; and what see could compete, at least,
in the West, with Home? Antioch, Alexandria, or
Constantinople, could alone rival, in pretensions to
Christian supremacy, the old metropolis of the empire :
and those sees were either fiercely contested, or occupied
by Arian prelates. Athanasius himself, by his residence,
at two separate periods, at Eome, submitted as it were
his cause to the Boman pontiff. Eome became the
centre of the ecclesiastical affairs of the West ; and,
since the Trinitarian opinions eventually triumphed
through the whole of Christendom, the firmness and
resolution with which the Boman pontiffs, notwithstand-
ing the temporary fall of Liberius, adhered to the
orthodox faith ; their uncompromising attachment to
Athanasius, who, by degrees, was sanctified and canon-
ised in the memory of Christendom, might be one
groundwork for that belief in their infallibility, which,
however it would have been repudiated by Cyprian, and
never completely prevailed in the East, became through-
out the West the inalienable spiritual heirloom of the
Boman pontiffs. Christian history will hereafter show
how powerfully this monarchical principle, if not esta-
blished, yet greatly strengthened, by these consequences

442

SUPERIORITY OK ARIANISM.

Book 1st

of the Atbanasian controversy, tended to consolidate and
80 to maintain, in still expanding influence, the Chris-
tianity of Europe.**

This conflict continued with unabated vigour till the
Superiority closc of the Tcigu of Constautius. Arianism
of Arianism. gradually assumed the ascendant, through the
violence and the arts of the Emperor ; all the more dis-
tinguished of the orthodox bishops were in exile, or, at
least, in disgrace. Though the personal influence of
Athanasius was still felt throughout Christendom, hig
obscure place of concealment was probably imknown to
the greater part of his own adherents. The aged Hosius
had died in his apostasy. Hilary of Poictiers, the
Bishop of Milan, and the violent Lucifer of CagKari,
were in exile ; and, though Constantius had consented to
the return of Liberius to his see, he had returned with
the disgrace of having consented to sign the new formu-
lary framed at Sirmium, where the term, Consubstantial,
if not rejected, was, at least, suppressed. Yet the popu-
larity of Liberius was undiminished, and the whole city
indignantly rejected the insidious proposition of Con-
stantius, that Liberius and his rival Felix should rule
the see with conjoint authority. The parties had already

b The orthodox Synod of Sardica
admits the superior dimity of the
successors of St. Peter. "Hoc enim
•ptimom et valde congruentissimum
esse videbitur, si ad caput, id est, ad
Petri Apostoli sedem, de singulis
quibusque provinciis Domini re&rant
sacerdotes.** Epist Syn. Sard, apud
Hilarium, Fragm. Oper. Hist. ii. a 9.
It was disclaimed with equal distinct-
ness by the seceding Arians. ** Novam
legem introdnoere putavemnt, ut
OiiMitalai Eipiscopi ab Ooddentalibns

jndicarentur." Fragm. iii. c. 12. In
a subsequent clause, they condemn
Julius, Bishop of Rome, by nanoe.
It is difficult to calculate the effect
which would commonly be produced
on men*s minds by their involving ia
one common cause the two tenets,
which, in fact, bore no relation to
each other, — the orthodox belief in
the Trinity, and the supremacy of the
Bishop of Rome. Sozomen, iv. 11,
13; Theodoret, ii. 17; Philo8toi|;iii89
It. 8.

Chap. V.

HERESY OF AETIUS.

443

come to blows, and even to bloodshed, when Felix, who
it was admitted, had never swerved from the creed of
NicfiBa, and whose sole offence was entering into com-
munion with the Arians, either from moderation, or
conscious of the inferiority of his party, withdrew to a
neighbouring city, where he soon closed his days, and
relieved the Christians of Eome from the apprehension
of a rival pontiff. The unbending resistance of the
Athanasians was no doubt confirmed, not merely by the
variations in the Arian creed, but by the new opinions
which they considered its legitimate offspring, and
which appeared to justify their worst apprehensions of
its inevitable consequences.

Aetius formed a new sect, which not merely denied
the consubstantiality, but the similitude of the Heresy of
Son to the Father. He was not only not of '^®^°^-
the same, but of a totally different, nature. Aetius,
according to the account of his adversaries, was a bold
and unprincipled adventurer ; ^ and the career of a per-
son of this class is exemplified in his life. The son of a
soldier, at one time condemned to death and to the
confiscation of his property, Aetius became a humble
artisan, first as a worker in copper, afterwards in gold.
His dishonest practices obliged him to give up trade,
but not before he had acquired some property. He
attached himself to Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch; was
expelled from the city by his successor ; studied gram-

* Socrates, ii. 35. So2onien, iii.
15, iv. 12. Philostorg. iii. 15. 17.
Suidas, Yoc. Actios. Epiphan. Hseres.
76, Gregor. Nyss. contra Eunom.

The most curious part in the
History of Aetius is his attachment
to the Aristotelian philosophy. With
him appears to have begun the lt»g

strife between Aristotelianism and
Platonism in the church. Aetius, to
prove his unimaginative doctrines,
employed tiie severe and prosaic cate-
gories of Aristotle, repudiating the
prevailing Platonic mode of argument
used by Origen and Clement of Ales*
andria. Socrates, ii. c. 35.

444 HERESY OF MACEDONIUS. Book IU.

mar at Anazarba ; was encouraged by th^ Arian bishop
of that see, named Athanasius ; returned to Antioch ;
was ordained deacon ; and again expelled the city.
Discomfited in a public disputation with a Gnostic, he
retired to Alexandria, where, being exercised in the art
of rhetoric, he revenged himself on a Manichean, who
died of shame. He then became a public itinerant
teacher, practising, at the same time, his lucrative art of
a goldsmith. The Arians rejected Aetius with no less
earnest indignation than the orthodox, but they could
not escape being implicated, as it were, in his unpopu-
larity ; and the odious Anomeans, those who denied the
similitude of the Son to the Father, brought new dis-
credit even on the more temperate partisans of the
Arian creed. Another heresiarch, of a higher rank,
still further brought disrepute on the Arian party.
ofMacedo- Maccdonius, the Bishop of Constantinople, to
^"^ the Arian tenet of the inequality of the Son to

the Father, added the total denial of the divinity of the
Holy Ghost.

Council still followed council. Though we may not
concur with the Arian bishops in ascribing to their
adversaries the whole blame of this perpetual tumult
and confusion in the Christian world, caused by these
incessant assemblages of thfe clergy, there must have
been much melancholy truth in their statement. " The
East and the West are in a perpetual state of restless*
ness and disturbance. Deserting our spiritual charges ;
abandoning the people of God ; neglecting the preach-
ing of the Gospel ; we are hurried about from place to
place, sometimes to great distances, some of us infirm
with age, with feeble constitutions or ill health, and are
sometimes obliged to leave our sick brethren on the
road. The whole administration of the empire, of the

CHAP. V. COUNCIL OF EIMINL 445

Emperor himself, the tribunes, and the commanders, at
this fearful crisis of the state, are solely occupied with
the lives and the condition of the bishops. The people
are by no means unconcerned. The whole brotherhood
watches in anxious suspense the event of these troubles ;
the establishment of post-horses is worn out by our
joumeyings ; and all on account of a few wretches, who,
if they had the least remaining sense of religion, would
say with the Prophet Jonah, * Take us up and cast us
into the sea ; so shall the sea be cahn unto you ; for we
know that it is on our account that this great tempest is
upon you.'"^

The synod at Sirmium had no effect in reconciling
the differences, or affirming the superiority of either
party. A double council was appointed, of the Eastern
prelates at Seleucia, of the Western at BiminL The
Arianism of Constantius himself had by this tune dege-
nerated still farther from the creed of NicsBa. Eudoxus,
who had espoused the Anomean doctrines of Aetius,
ruled his untractable but passive mind. The ca^jnca of
council of Bimini consisted of at least 400 ^"™^
bishops, of whom not above eighty were Arians. Their
resolutions were firm and peremptory. They repudiated
the Arian doctrines; they expressed their rigid ad-
herence to the formulary of Nicsea. Ten bishops, how-
ever, of each party, were deputed to communicate their
decrees to Constantius. The ten Arians were received
with the utmost respect, their rivals with every kind of
slight and neglect. Insensibly the Athanasians were
admitted to more intimate intercourse; the flatteries,
perhaps the bribes, of the Emperor prevailed; they
returned, having signed a formulary directly opposed to

d Hoar. Oper. Hist. Fragm. zi. c 2&

446

TEIUMPH OF ARIANISM.

BooKin.

their instructions. Their reception at first was unpro-
mising; but by degrees the council, from which its
firmest and most resolute members had gradually de-
parted, and in which many poor and aged bishops still
retained their seats, wearied, perplexed, worn out by the
expense and discomfort of a long residence in a foreign
city, consented to sign a creed in which the contested
word, the homoousion, was carefully suppressed.® Arian-
ism was thus deliberately adopted by a council, of which
the authority was undisputed. The world, says Jerome^
groaned to find itself Arian. But, on their return to
their dioceses, the indignant prelates everjrwhere pro-
tested against the fraud and violence which had been
practised against them. New persecutions followed:
Gaudentius, Bishop of Bimini, lost his life.

The triumph of Arianism was far easier among the
hundred and sixty bishops assembled at Seleucia. But
it was more fatal to their cause : the Arians, and Semi-
Arians, and Anomeans, mingled in tumultuous strife,
and hurled mutusd anathemas against each other.

The new council met at Constantinople. By some
strange political or religious vicissitude, the party of the
Anomeans triumphed, while Aetius, its author, was sent
into banishment.' Ma-cedonius was deposed; Eudoxus

* It is curioos enough, that the
Latin language did not furnish terms
to express this fine distinction. Some
Western prelates, many of whom
probably did not undei-stand a word
of Greek, proposed, '*jam usise et
horooousii nomina recedant qxm in
divinia Scriptmia de Deo, et Dei
Filio, non inveniuntur scripta." Apud
Hilarium, Oper. Hist. Fragm. iz.

' AetiuB and Eonomiua seem to

have heea the heroes of the historian
Philostorgius, fragments of whose
history have been preserved by the
pious hostility of Photius. This dimi
nishes our r^ret for the loss of the
onginal work, which would be less
curious than a genuine Arian history.
Philostoi^us seems to object to the
anti-materialiBt view of the Deity
maintained by the Semi-Arian £use«
bias, and, according to him, by Aria"

Chap. V.

TRIUMPH OF ARIANISM.

447

of Antioch was translated to the imperial see ; and the
solemn dedication of the church of St. Sophia was cele-»
brated by a prelate who denied the similitude of nature
between the Father and the Son. The whole Christian
world was in confusion ; these fatal feuds penetrated
almost as far as the Gospel itself had reached. The
Emperor, whose alternately partial vehemence and sub-
tlety had inflamed rather than allayed the tumult, found
his authority set at nought ; a deep, stem, and ineradic-
able resistance opposed the imperial decrees. A large
portion of the empire proclaimed aloud that there were
limits to the imperial despotism ; that there was a
higher allegiance, which superseded that due to the
civil authority ; that in affairs of religion they would
not submit to the appointment of superiors who did not
profess their views of Christian orthodoxy.^ The Em-
peror himself, by mingling with almost fanatical passion
and zeal in these controversies, at once lowered himself
to the level of his subjects, and justified the importance
which they attached to these questions. If Constantius
had firmly, calmly, and consistently, enforced mutual
toleration, — if he had set the example of Christian
moderation and temper ; if he had set his face solely
against the stem refusal of Athanasius and his party to
admit the Arians into communion, — he might, perhaps,
have retained some influence over the contending par-
ties. But he was not content without enforcing the
dominance of the Arian party ; he dignified Athanasius

himsdlt*. He reproaches Eusebins with
asserting the Deity to be incompre-
hensible and inconceivable : Ayvooaros
Koi dKai ctAifirTos. Lib, i. 2, 3.
' Hilary quotes the sentence of St.

Paul, ** Ubi fides est, ibi et libertas
est;'* in allusion to the £mperor*s
assuming the cognisance over religious
questions. Oper. Hist. Fragro* i. c &

443 TRIUMPH OF ARIANISM. Book UI.

^th tbe hatred of a personal enemy, almost of a rival ;
and his subjects, by his own apparent admission that
these were questions of spiritual b'fe and death, were
compelled to postpone his decrees to those of God ; to
obey their bishops, who held the keys of heaven and
hell, i-ather than Caesar, who could only afflict them
with civil disabilities, or penalties in this lite.

Ciup. TI JULIAN. 449

OHAPTEB VL

Julian.

Amidst all this intestine strife within the pale of Chris-
tianity, and this conflict between the civil and religious
authorities concerning their respective limits. Paganism
made a desperate effort to regain its lost supremacy.
Julian has, perhaps, been somewhat unfairly branded
with, the ill-sounding name of Apostate. His Chris-
tianity was but the compulsory obedience of youth to
the distasteful lessons of education, enforced by the
hateful authority of a tyrannical relative. As iearly as
the maturity of his reason, — at least as soon as he dared
to reveal his secret sentiments, — ^he avowed his prefer-
ence for the ancient Paganism.

The most astonishing part of Julian's history is the
development and partial fulfilment of all his vast designs
during a reign of less than two years. His own age
wondered at the rapidity with which the young Em-
peror accomplished his military, civil, and religious
schemes.* During his separate and subordinate com-
mand as Caesar, his time was fully occupied with his
splendid campaigns upon the Khine.** Julian was the
vindicator of the old majesty of the empire ; he threw

« « Dicet oliquis : quomodo tarn
malta tarn brevi tempore. £t rect^.
Sed Imperator noster addit ad tempus

quod otio suo detrahit Itaque

grandttvum jam imperium videbittir

his, qui Don ratione diemm et mensium.
sed operum multitudine et effectanun re*
rum modo Juliani tempora metientur."
Mamertini Grat. Actio, c. ziv.
^ Six years, from 355 to 361.

VOL, IL 2Q

450 SHORT BEIGN OF JULIAN. Book IU.

back with a bold and successful effort the inroad of bar-
barism, which already threatened to overwhelm the
Eoman civilisation of Graul, During the two imfinisbed
Short reign years of his sole government, Julian had re-
A.D. 361-363. united the whole Boman empire under his
single sceptre; he had reformed the army, the court,
the tribunals of justice ; he had promulgated many
useful laws, which maintained their place in the juris-
prudence of the empire ; he had established peace on
all the frontiers ; he had organised a large and well-
disciplined force to chastise the Persians for their
aggressions on the eastern border ; and, by a formidable
diversion within their own territories, to secure the
Euphratic provinces against the most dangerous rival of
the Roman power. During all these engrossing cares of
empire, he devoted himself with the zeal and activity of
a mere philosopher and man of letters to those more
tranquil pursuits. The conqueror of the Franks and
the antagonist of Sapor delivered lectures in the schools,
and published works, which, whatever may be thought
of their depth and truth, display no mean powers of
composition : as a writer, Julian will compete with most
of his age. Besides all this, his vast and restless spirit
contemplated, and had already commenced, nothing less
than a total change in the religion of the empire ; not
merely the restoration of Paganism to the legal su-
premacy which it possessed before the reign of Con-
stantine, and the degradation of Christianity into a
private sect ; but the actufd extirpation of the new reli-
gion from the minds of men by the reviving energies of
a philosophic, and at the same time profoundly religious,
Paganism.

The genius of ancient Eome and of ancient Greece
might appear to revive in amicable union in the soul

Chap. VI. . HIS CHARACTEfi. 451

of Julian. He displayed the unmeasured military am-
bition, which turned the defensive war into character of
a war of aggression on all the imperilled '^*"*°'
frontiers ; the broad and vigorous legislation ; the unity
of administration ; the severer tone of manners, which
belonged to the better days of Rome ; so too the fine
cultivation ; the perspicuous philosophy ; the lofty con-
ceptions of moral greatness and purity, which distin-
guished the old Athenian, If in the former (the Eoman
military enterprise), he met eventually with the fate of
Crassus or of Varus, rather than the glorious successes
of Germanicus or Trajan, the times were more in fault
than the general : if in the latter (the Grecian eleva-
tion and elegance of mind), Julian more resembled at
times the affectation of the Sophist and the coarseness
of the Cynic, than the lofty views and exquisite har-
mony of Plato or the practical wisdom of Socrates, the
effete and exhausted state of Grecian letters and philo-
sophy must likewise be taken into the account.

In the uncompleted two years of his sole empire^*^
Julian had advanced so far in the restoration of the
internal vigour and unity of administration, that it is
doubtM how much further, but for the fatal Perwan
campaign, he might have fulfilled the visions of his
noble ambition. He might have averted, at least for
a time, the terrible calamities which burst upon the
Eoman world during the reign of Yalentinian and
Yalens. But difficult and desperate as the enterprise
might appear, the re-organisation of a decaying empire
was less impracticable than the restoration of an all but
extinguished religion. A religion may awaken from

• One jear, eight months, and twentj^thne da^re. La Bletene, Vie dt
/ulien, p. 494.

2o2

452 EELIGION OF JULIAN. Book HI.

indifference, and resume its dominion over the minds of
men ; but not if supplanted by a new form of faith
which has identified itself with the opinions and senti-
ments of the general mind. It can never dethrone a
successfiil invader, who has been recognised as a lawful
sovereign. And Christianity (could the clear and saga-
cious mind of Julian be blind to this essential differ-
ence?) had occupied the whole soul of man with a
fulness and confidence which belonged, and could be-
long, to no former religion. It had intimately blended
together the highest truths of philosophy with the
purest morality ; the loftiest speculation with the most
practical spirit. The vague theory of another life, timidly
and dimly announced by the later Paganism, could ill
compete with the deep and intense conviction, now
rooted in the hearts of a large part of mankind by
Christianity ; the source in some of harrowing fears, in
others of the noblest hopes.

Julian united in his own mind, and attempted to work
Religion of ^^^ ^ ^^^ rcligiou, the two incongruous cha-
juiian. racters of a zealot for the older superstitions
and for the more modem philosophy of Greece. He
had fused together, in that which appeared to him an
harmonious system, Homer and Plato. He thought that
the whole ritual of sacrifice would combine with that
allegoric interpretation of the ancient mythology, which
ondeified the greater part of the Heathen Pantheon.
All that Paganism had borrowed from Christianity, it
had rendered comparatively cold and powerless. The
one Supreme Deity was a name and an abstract con-
ception, a metaphysical being. The visible representa-
tive of the Deity, the Sun, which was in general an
essential part of the new system, was, after all, foreigii
and Oriental; it belonged to the genuine mythology

Ohap. VI. BELIGION OF JULIAN. 463

neither of Greece nor Kome. The Theurgy, or awful
and sublime communion of the mind with the spiritual
world, was either too fine and fanciful for the vulgar
belief, or associated, in the dim confusion of the popular
conception, with that magic, against which the laws of
Rome had protested with such stern solemnity ; and
which, therefore, however eagerly pursued and reve-
renced with involuntary awe, was always associated with
impressions of its unlawfulness and guilt. Christianity,
on the other hand, had completely incorporated with
itself aU that it had admitted from Paganism, or which,
if we may so speak, constituted the Pagan part of Chris-
tianity. The Heathen Theurgy, even in its purest form,
its dreamy intercourse with the intermediate race of
daemons, was poor and ineffective, compared with the
diabolic and angelic agency, which became more and
more mingled up with Christianity. Where these sub-
ordinate daemons were considered by the more philo-
sophic Pagan to have been the older deities of the
popular faith, it was rather a degradation of the ancient
worship ; where this was not the case, this fine percep-
tion of the spiritual world was the secret of the initiate
few, rather than the all-pervading superstition of the
many. The Christian daemonology, on the other hand,
which began to be heightened and multiplied by the
fantastic imagination of the monks, brooding in their
solitudes, seemed at least to grow naturally out of the reli-
gious system. The gradually darkening into superstition
was altogether imperceptible and harmonised entirely
with the general feelings of the time. Christianity was
a living plant, which imparted its vitality to the foreign
suckers grafted upon it ; the dead and sapless trimk of
Paganism withered even the living boughs which were
blended with it, bv its own inevitable decay.

454 EDUCATION OF JULIAlf. Book Hi,

On the other hand, Christianity at no period could
uot.voqt. ajipear in a less amiable and attractive IJglit
ciirtju»ni9. to a mind preindiaposed to its reception. It
was in a state of nnivereal fierce and implacable dis-
cord t tlie chief cities of the empire had run with blood
shed in religious quarrels. The sole object of the con-
flicting parties seemed to he to confine to themselves
the temporal and spiritual blessings of the faith; to
exclude as many as they might from that eternal life,
and to anathematise to that eternal death, which were
revealed by the Gospel, and placed, according to the
general belief, under the special authority of the clergy.
Society seemed to he split up into irreconcileable par-
ties ; to the animosities of Pagan and Christian, were
now added those of Christian and Christian. Chria-
tianity had passed through its earlier period of noble
moral enthusiaam ; of the energy witli which it addressed
its first proclamation of its doctrines to man ; of the i
dignity with which it stood aloof from the intrigues and 1
vices of the world ; and of its admirable constancy under J
persecution. It had not fully attained its second state
as a rehgion generally established in the minds of men,
by a dominant hierarcliy of unquestioned authority.
Its great truths had no longer the striking charm of
novelty ; nor were they yet universally and profoandljr i
implanted in the general mind by hereditary tra
mission or early education, and ratified by the unques- J
tiouing sanction of ages.

The youtliful education of Julian had been, it might
almost appear, studiously and skilfully conducted, so as
to show the brighter side of Paganiam, the darker of
Chriatianity. His infant years had been clouded by the
murder of hia father. How far bis mind might retain
any impression of that awful event, or remembrance of

CHia». VI.

EDUCATION OF JULIAN.

455

the place of his refuge, the Cliristian church, or of tlie
saviour of his life, the virtuous Bishop of Arethusa, it is
of course impossible to conjecture. But Julian's first
instructor was a man who, bom a Scythian, and edu-
cated in Greece,** united the severe morality of his ruder
ancestors with the elegance of Grecian accomplishments.
He enforced upon his young pupil the strictest modesty,
contempt for the licentious or frivolous pleasures of
youth, for the theatre and the bath. At the same time,
while he delighted his mind with the poetry of Homer,
his graver studies were the Greek and Latin languages,
the elements of the philosophy of Greece, and music,
that original and attractive element of Grecian educa-
tion." At the age of about fourteen or fifteen, Julian
was shut up, with his brother Gallus, in Macellae, a
fortress in Asia Minor, and committed in this sort of
honourable prison to the rigid superintendence of eccle-
siastics. By his Christian instructors, the Education of
young and ardent Julian was bound down to a '^""^*
course of the strictest observances, the midnight vigU,
the fast, the long and weary prayer, and visits to the
tombs of martyrs, rather than a wise and rational initia-
tion in the genuine principles of the Gospel ; or a
judicious familiarity with the originality, the beauty,
and the depth of the Christian morals and Christian
religion. He was taught the virtue of implicit sub-
mission to his ecclesiastical superiors ; the munificence
of conferring gifts upon the churches ; with his brother
Gallus he was permitted, or rather incited, to build a
chapel over the tomb of St Mammas.' For six years, he

* His name was Mardonitu. Jalian.
ad Athen. et Misopogon. Socrat. E.
H. iii. 1. Amm, Marc, xxii, 12.

• See the hijh character of this man

in the Misopogon, p. 351.

' Julian is said even thus early to
have betrayed his secret inclinations;
in his dedamations he took delight in

456

EDUCATION OF JULIAN.

BooKlIL

bitterly asserts, be was deprived of every kind of useful
instruction.^ Julian and his brother, it is even said,
were ordained readers, and oflBciated in public in that
character. But the passages of the sacred writings,
>vith which he might thus have become acquainted,
were imposed as lessons; and in the mind of Julian,
Christianity, thus taught and enforced, was inseparably
ex)nnected with the irksome and distasteful feelings of
confinement and degradation. No youths of his own
rank, or of ingenuous birth, were permitted to visit his
prison ; he was reduced, as he indignantly declares, to
the debasing society of slaves.

At the age of twenty, Julian was permitted to reside
in Constantinople, afterwards at Nicomeditu The
jealousy of Constantius in Constantinople was excited
by the popular demeanour, sober manners, and the
reputation for abilities, which directed all eyes towards
his youthful nephew. He dismissed Julian to the more
dangerous and fatal residence in Nicomedia, in the
neighbourhood of the most celebrated and most attrac-
tive of the Pagan party. The most faithful adherents
of Paganism were that class with which the tastes and
inclinations of Julian brought him into close intimacy,
the sophists, the men of letters, the rhetoricians, the
poets, the philosophers. He was forbidden, indeed,
j^erhaps by the jealousy of his appointed instructor
Ecebolus, who at this time conformed to the religion of
the court, to hear the dangerous lectures of Libanius,

defending the cause of Paganism against
Christianity. A prophetic miracle fore-
boded his future course. While this
chui'ch rose expeditiously under the
labour of Gallus, the obstinate stones
would not obey that of Julian ; an
invisible hand disturbed the founda*

tions, and threw down all his work.
Gregory Nazianzen declares that he
had heard this from eye-witnesses;
Sozomen, from those who had heard
it from eye-witnesses. Gr^r. Or. iii.-
p. 59, 61. Sozomen, r. 2.

f Udirros fuiBiifueros infov9«datK

Chap. VI. INTERCOURSE WITH THE PHILOSOPHERS. 467

equally celebrated for his eloquence and his ardent
attachment to the old religion. But Julian interoonrse

with the

obtained liis writings, which he devoured with philosophers,
all the delight of a stolen enjoyment.^ Julian formed
an intimate acquaintance with the heads of the philo-
sophic school, with -<9Edesius, his pupils Eusebius and
Chrysanthius, and at last with the famous Maximus.
These men are accused of practising the most subtle and
insidious arts upon the character of their ardent and
youthful votary. His grave and meditative mind im-
bibed with eager delight the solemn mysticism of their
tenets, which were impressed more deeply by significant
and awful ceremonies. A magician at Nicomedia first
excited his curiosity, and tempted him to enter on these
exciting courses. At Pergamus he visited the aged
^desius ; and the manner in which these philosophers
passed Julian onward from one to another, as if through
successive stages of initiation in their mysterious doc-
trines, bears the appearance of a deliberate scheme to
work him up to their purposes. The aged iEdesius
addressed him as the favoured child of wisdom ; declined
the important charge of his instruction, but commended
him to his pupils, Eusebius and Chrysanthius, who could
unlock the inexhaustible source of light and wisdom.
"If you should attain the supreme felicity of being
initiated in their mysteries, you will blush to have been
bom a man, you will no longer endure the name." The
pupils of iEdesius fed the greedy mind of the proselyte
with all their stores of wisdom, and then skilfully un-
folded the greater fame of Maximus. Eusebius pro-
fessed to despise the vulgar arts of wonder-working, at
least in comparison with the purification of the soul ; but

k LiUn. Orat. Par. t i. f\ :^Q

458 HAXIMUS. Book III

he described the power of Maximus in terms to whicli
Julian could not listen without awe and wonder. Maxi-
mus had led them into the temple of Hecate ; he had
burned a few grains of incense, he had murmured a
hymn, and the statue of the goddess was seen to smile.
They were awe-struck, but Maximus had declared that
this was nothing. The lamps throughout the temple
shall immediately burst into light : as he spoke, they
had kindled and blazed up. ''But of these mystical
wonder-workers, we think lightly," proceeded the skilftil
speaker, " do thou, like us, think only of the internal
purification of the reason." " Keep to your book,"
broke out the impatient youth, "this is the man 1
seek."* Julian hastened to Ephesus. The person and
demeanour of Maximus were well suited to keep up the
illusion. He was a venerable man, with a long white
beard, with keen eyes, great activity, soft and persua-
sive voice, rapid and fluent, eloquence. By Maximus,
who summoned Chrysanthius to him, Julian was brought
into direct communion with the invisible world. The
&ithM and oflScious Genii from this time watched over
Julian in peace and war ; they conversed with him in
his slumbers, they warned him of dangers, they con-
ducted his military operations. Thus far we proceed on
the authority of Pagan writers ; the scene of his solemn
initiation rests on the more doubtful testimony of Chris-
tian historians,*^ which, as they were little likely to be
admitted into the secrets of these dark and hidden rites,
is to be received with grave suspicion ; more especially
as they do not scruple to embellish these rites with
Christian miracle. Julian was led first into a temple,

* Eunapiun, in Vit. JEdeiii tt I ^ Oreg. Naz. Orat. iu. 71. Theo-

Mazimi. I dorat HL S.

Chap. VI. CONDUCT OF CONSTANTIUS. 459

then into a subterranean crypt, in almost total darkness.
The evocations were made ; wild and terrible sounds
were heard ; spectres of fire jibbered around. Julian, in
his sudden terror, made the sign of the cross. All dis-
appeared, all was silent. Twice this took place, and
Julian could not but express to Maximus his astonish-
ment at the power of this sign. " The gods," returned
the dexterous philosopher, "will have no communion
with so profane a worshipper." From this time, it is
said, on better authority,™ Julian burst, like a lion in
his wrath, the slender ties which bound him to Chris-
tianity. But. he was still constrained to dissemble his
secret apostasy. His enemies declared that he redoubled
his outward zeal for Christianity, and even shaved his
head in conformity with the monastic practice. His
brother Gallus had some suspicion of his secret views,
and sent the Arian bishop Aetius to confirm him in the
faith.

How far Julian, in this time of danger, stooped to
disffuise his real sentiments, it were rash to conduct of

^ ••111 -I Constantlus

decide. But it would by no means commend tojuiian.
Christianity to the respect and attachment of Julian,
that it was the religion of his imperial relative. Popu-
lar rumour did not acquit Constantius of the murder of
Julian's father ; and Julian himself afterwards publicly
avowed his belief in this crime.*^ He had probably
owed his own escape to his infant age and to the activity
of his friends. Up to this time, his life had been the
precarious and permissive boon of a jealous tyrant, who
had inflicted on him every kind of degrading restraint.
His place of education had been a prison, and his subse-
quent liberty was watched with suspicious vigilance,

■ Libenitui.

B Ad Samtom Populumque Ath^niensem. Tulian Opcr. p. 270.

460 CONDUCT OF CONSTANTIUS. Book lit.

The personal religion of Constantius; his embarking
with alternate violence and subtlety in theological dis-
putations; his vacillation between timid submission to
priestly authority and angry persecution, were not likely
to m£^e a favourable impression on a wavering mind.
The Pagans themselves, tf we may take the best his-
torian of the time as the representative of their opinions,**
considered that Constantius dishonoured the Christian
religion by mingling up its perspicuous simplicity vnXh
anile superstition. If there was little genuine Chris-
tianity in the theological discussions of Constantius,
there had been less of its beautiful practical spirit in his
conduct to Julian. It had allayed no jealotlsy, miti-
gated no hatred ; it had not restrained his temper from
overbearing tyranny, nor kept his hands clean from
blood. And now, the death of his brother Gallus, to
whom he seems to have cherished warm attachment,
was a new evidence of the capricious and unhumanised
tyranny of Constantius, a fearful omen of the uncer-
tainty of his own life under such a despotism. He had
beheld the advancement and the fate of his brother;
and his future destiny presented the alternative either
of ignominious obscurity or fatal distinction. His life
was spared only through the casual interference of the
humane and enlightened Empress; and her influence
gained but a slow and difficult triumph over the malig-
nant eunuchs, who ruled the mind of Constantius. But
he had been exposed to the ignominy of arrest and
imprisonment, and a fearful suspense of seven weai-y
months.^ His motions, his words, were watched; his
very heart scrutinised ; he was obliged to suppress the

• Ammianus Marcellinus. I firivAv B\»p iKit6<ras T|r8c ic^uccio-f .

9 'Euk 5^ a^ic« fJL^is, ivrh, | Ad. S. P. Ath. p. 272.

Chap. VI. JULIAN AT ATHENS. 461

natural emotions of grief for the death of his brother ;
to impose silence on his fluent eloquence, and act the
hypocrite to nature as well as to religion.

BKs retreat was Athens, of all cities in the empire
that, probably, in which Paganism still main- j^nanat
tained the highest ascendancy, and appeared ^^^^
in the most seductive form. The political religion of
Eome had its stronghold in the capital ; that of Greece,
in the centre of intellectual culture and of the fine arts.
Athens might still be considered the university of the
empire; from all quarters, particularly of the East,
young men of talent and promise crowded to complete
their studies in those arts of grammar, rhetoric, philo-
sophy ; which, however, by no means disdained by the
Christians, might still be considered as more strictly
attached to the Pagan interest.

Among the Christian students who at this time paid
the homage of their residence to this great centre of
intellectual culture, were Basil and Gregory of Nazian-
zum. The latter, in the orations with which in later
times he condemned the memory of Julian, has drawn,
with a coarse and unfriendly hand, the picture of his
person and manners. His manners did injustice to the
natural beauties of his person, and betrayed his restless,
inquisitive, and somewhat incoherent, character. The
Christian (we must remember, indeed, that these pre-
dictions were published subsequent to their fulfilment,
and that, by their own account, Julian had already
betrayed, in Asia Minor, his secret propensities) already
discerned in the unquiet and unsubmissive spirit, the
future apostate. But the general impression which
fulian made was far more favourable. His quickness,
his accomplishments, the variety and extent of his
information ; his gentleness, his eloquence, and even his

462 JULIAN AT ELEUSIS.

modeflty, gained universal admiration, and Btrengthenet
the interest excited by his forlorn and perilous position.

Of all existing Pagan rites, those which still mai
jmim tained the greatest respect, and would impre

Eisiuu. a mind like Julian's with the profoiindel
veneration, were the Eleuainian mysteries. They unite
the sanctity of almost immemorial age with »
tude to the Platonic Paganism of the day, at lea
sufficient for the ardent votaries of the latter to clai
their alliance. The Hierophaut of Eleusis was admitti
to be the most [lotent theurgist in the world.i Julii
honoured him, or was honoured by his intimacy; ai
the initiation in the Mystery of those, emphaticall;
called the Goddesses, with all its appalling dramatic
machinery, and its high speculative and imagioativi
doctrines, the impenetrable, the ineffable tenets of t
sanctuary, consummated the work of Julian's conversioil

The elevation of Julian to the rank of Ctesar was a
Eiawtion length extorted from the necessities, rath^
t^^S than freely bestowed by the love, of the Eofe
''""■ peror. Nor did the jealous hostihty of GonstaiM

tins cease with tbis apparent reconciliation. Constantini
with cold suspicion, thwarted all his measures, cripple(
his resources, and appropriated to himself, with unblushE<
ing injustice, the fame of his victories.'' Julian's assump^

t ConipAre (io Eunap. Vit. Mda.
p, 52, edit. Boiseonadc) the prophecy
cf the distohition of PugiuiiBm ascribed
to ih'm pontiff; a predicticn which
maj do credit to the sagacity, or evince
ihe apprehensions of the uer, but will
by no means claim the honour of

, 1. I

; seqq.

The ■
mianui ahowa the real
the court towards Julian. " In odlna
vetiit cum tictoriiii suis capella
homo ; Dt hirButnin Juliaaiun
penteflappeUantaqueloqaacem tall
ft purpurstam aiiniani, at litterii
GiKCom." Amm. Hare. xrii. 11

Chap. VL DEATH OF CONSTANTIUS. 463

tion of the purple, whether forced upon him by the
ungovernable attachment of his soldiery, or prepared by
his own subtle ambition, was justified, and perhaps com-
pelled, by the base ingratitude of Constantius ; and by
his manifest, if not avowed, resolution of preparing the
ruin of Julian, by removing his best troops to the East."

The timely death of Constantius alone prevented the
deadly warfare in which the last of the race of Death of
Constantino were about to contest the empire. ^n»*«^""«-
The dying bequest of that empire to Julian, said to have
been made by the penitent Constantius, could not efface
the recollection of those long years of degradation, of
jealousy, of avowed or secret hostility ; still less could it
allay the dislike or contempt of Julian for his weak and
insolent predecessor, who, governed by eunuchs, wasted
the precious time which ought to have been devoted to
the cares of the empire, in idle theological discussions,
or quarrels with contending ecclesiastics. The part in
the character of the deceased Emperor least likely to
find favour in the sight of his successor Julian was his
religion. The unchristian Christianity of Constantius
must bear some part of the guilt of Julian's apostasy.

Up to the time of his revolt against Constantius,
Julian had respected the dominant Chris- cood„ctof
tianity. The religious acts of his early youth, '''^"^
performed in obedience to, or under the influence of his
instructors ; or his submissive conformity, when his
watchful enemies were eager for his life, ought hardly
to convict him of deliberate hypocrisy. In Gaul, still
under the strictest suspicion, and engaged in almost
incessant warfare, he would have few opportunities to
betray his secret sentiments. But Jupiter was con-

• Amm. Maix. iz. &c. ZosimuB, iii. LiUn. Or. x. JuL ad S. P. Q. A^

464 DEATH OF CONSTANTIUS Book m.

suited in his private chamber, and sanctioned his assump-
tion of the imperial purple.^ And no sooner had he
marched into Illyria, an independent Emperor at the
head of his own army, than he threw aside all conceal-
ment, and proclaimed himself a worshipper of the an-
cient gods of Paganism. The auspices were taken ; and
the act of divination was not the less held in honour,
because the foii;unate soothsayer announced the death
of Constantius. The army followed the example of their
victorious general At his command, the neglected
temples resumed their ceremonies ; he adorned them
with offerings ; he set the example of costly sacrifices.'
The Athenians in particular obeyed with alacrity the
commands of the new Emperor; the honours of the
priesthood became again a worthy object of contest;
two distinguished females claimed the honour of repre-
senting the genuine EumolpidaB, and of oflSciating in the
Parthenon. Julian, already anxious to infiise as much
of the real Christian spirit, as he could, into reviving
Paganism, exhorted the contending parties to pecwe and
unity, as the most acceptable sacrifice to the gods.

The death of Constantius left the whole Eoman world
open to the civil and religious schemes which lay, float-
ing and unshaped, before the imagination of Julian.
The civil reforms were executed with necessary severity ;
but in some instances, with more than necessary cruelty.
The elevation of Paganism into a rational and effective
faith, and the depression, and even the eventual extinc-
tion of Christianity, were the manifest objects of Julian's
religious policy. Julian's religion was the eclectic Pa-

* Amm. xzi. 1. I (ricc^o/uey robs Btohs iuwfKLvUhy Kolk

« The Western army was more
easily practised upon than the Eastern
soidiei's at a subsequent peiiod. 8pi|-

rh TA,^flos rov ffvyKor^XBovros fiog
(TrparoircSov Bfoatfih iffrip, Epist
xxxviiL

■ SaiP. TL

CONDUCT OF JULIAN.

■465

gaoiam of the new Platonic philosophy. The ohiei
speculatiTe tenet waa Oriental rather than Greek or
Botnan. The one immaterial inconceivable Father
dwelt alone ; thongh his majeBty was held in reverence,
the direct and material object of worship was the great
Snn,^ the living and animated, and propitious and
beneficent image of the immaterial Father.^ Below this
primal Deity and his glorious image, there was room for
the whole Pantheon of subordinate deities, of whom, in
like manner, the stars were the material representa-
tives; but who possessed invisible powers, and mani-
fested themselves in various ways, in dreams and visions,
through prodigies and oracles, the flights of birds, and
the signs in the sfleriflcial victims.* This vague and
comprehensive Paganism might include under its do-
minion all classes and nations which adhered to tlie
Heathea worship ; the Oriental, the Greet, the Roman,
even, perhaps, the Northern barbarian, would not refuse
to admit the simplicity of the primal article of the
creed, spreading out as it did below into the boundless
latitude of Polytheism. The immortality of the soul
appears to follow as an inference from some of Julian's
Platonic doctrines;' but it is remarkable how rarely it
is put forward as an important point of difference in his

iiJ (li'fiuX'yi "*! ttivovv Kul
iffsBofirfiy, to3 iioiiTou tirpus.
t ComiHre Jnliaa. apud Cyril,, lib,

a p. 65.

• jDlinil asserts the vaiiaiu offioei
of the lubordinot* ileitis, »pud Cyril.,
. p. 235.

of tha most remarkable illos.
WmtioBi of thJB wide-spread worship i
of the niD is to be found 1q the nddrem
Dj Julius Firmiciu llstcmus b
vol.. II.

Emperon Constastius and CoSBtoni.
He iDtroducee the sua as remonatraCing
againat the dishonourahle hoaoun thus
heaped ipou him, and prolota agiinst
beiug responsible for tlis acta, or in-
volved in the ate, of Libei-, Attya, or

■' Nolc

Lcnta suppeditet. . . . Quio-
(Inipliciter Deo parw, nee
de me iutcUigatis, Diti quod

FtUJ

nmdfl I

to d^m

■J6l3 RESTORATION OF PAGANISM. Rws HI,

religions writings ; while, in liia private correspondence,
he falls back to the dubious and hesitating language of
the ancient Heathens : " I am not one of those who dis-
believe the immortality of the soul ; but the gods aione
can know ; man can only conjecture that secret :" '' but
his best consolation on the loss of friends was the say-
ing of the Grecian philosopher to Darius, that if he
would find three persons who had uot suffered the like
calamities, he would restore the king's beautiful wife to
Ijfe.*^ Julian's dying language, however, though Ftill
vague and allied to the old Pantheistic system, eoimdfl
more like serene coniidence in some future state
being.

The first eai-e of Juliaji was to restore the onti
BstoraUm form of Pt^anism to its former splendour,
ofPoBmi™. ^Q infuse the vigour of reviving youth into the
antiquated system. The temples were everywhere to
resume their ancient magnificence ; the muuicipolitiea
were chained with the expense of these costly renova-
tions. Where they had been destroyed by the zeal of
the Christians, large fines were levied on the Chnrches,
and became, as will hereafter appear, a pretext for
grinding exaction, and sometimes cruel persecution. It
assessed on the whole community the penalty, merited,
perhaps, only by the rashness of a few zealots ; it revived
outrages almost foi-gotten, and injuries perpetrated, per-
haps, with the sanction, unquestionably with the con-
nivance, of the former government. In many instances,
it may have revenged, on the innocent and peacefiil, the

" 05 yip ^ irai iii^fU isfitt rSy I (nii. tirlrraatai Si alni Toij Steii
itrnirfi/fuy t4i ijux*' flToi irpo- irdyiin. Episl. tilii. p. 453,
ariWuirSai ram aa/iirai/ f( avva- ' Epistle to Ameiius ud ihe Ion of
TtiXKvaBai ■(!! ToFi >iiy at- hia wife. Ep, invii. p, 413.

CHAP. VL KESTORATION OF PAGANISM. 467

crimes of the avaricious and irreligious; who either plun-
dered under the mask of Christian zeal, or seized the
opportunity, when the zeal of others might secure their
impunity. That which takes place in all religious revo-
lutions, had occurred to a considerable extent: the
powerful had seized the opportunity of plundering the
weaker party for their own advantage. The eunuchs
and favourites of the court had fattened on the spoil of
the temples.** If these men had been forced to regorge
their ill-gotten gains, justice might have approved the
measure ; but their crimes were unfairly visited on the
whole Christian body. The extent to which the ruin
and spoliation of the temples had been carried in the
East, may be estimated from the tragic lamentations of
Libanius. The soul of Julian, according to the orator,
burned for empire, in order to restore the ancient order
of things.

In some respects, the success of Julian answered the
high-wrought expectations of his partisans. His pane-
gyrist indulges in this lofty language. " Thou, then, I
say, mightiest Emperor, hast restored to the republic
the expelled and banished virtues ; thou hast rekindled
the study of letters ; thou hast not only delivered from
her trial Philosophy, suspected heretofore and deprived
of her honours, and even arraigned as a criminal, but
hast clothed her in purple, crowned her with jewels, and
seated her on the imperial throne. We may now look
on the heavens, and contemplate the stars with fearless
gaze, who, a short time ago, like the beasts of the field.

< « Pasti templorum spoliis/' is the
•trong expression of Ammianus. Liba-
nius says, that some persons bad built
themselves houses from the materials

of the temples. Xfyfifiara 8^ MKovv
ol rots rwv Upwv \idois a<plffiv avi o7i
oUias iyflpoyrts, Orat. Parent, p^
504.

2h2

468

RESTORATION OF PAGANISM.

Book III.

fixed our downward and grovelling vision on the earth." *
"First of all," says Libanius, "he re-established the
exiled religion, building, restoring, embellishing the
temples. Everywhere were altars and fires, and the
blood and fat of sacrifice, and smoke, and sacred rites,
and diviners, fearlessly performing their functions. And
on the tops of mountains were pipings and processions,
and the sacrificial ox, which was at once an offering to
the gods and a banquet to men."^ The private temple
in the palace of Julian, in which he worshipped daily,
was sacred to the Sun ; but he founded altars to all the
gods. He looked with especial favour on those cities
which had retained their temples ; with abhorrence on
those which had suffered them to be destroyed, or to fall
to ruin.^

Julian so entirely misapprehended Christianity, as to
attribute its success and influence to its external orga-
nisation, rather than to its internal authority over the
soul of man. He thought that the religion grew out of
the sacerdotal power, not that the sacerdotal power was
but the vigorous development of the religion. He fondly
supposed that the imperial edict, and the authority of
the government, could supply the place of profound reli-
gious sentiment ; and transform the whole Pagan priest^
liood, whether attached to the dissolute worship of the
East, the elegant ceremonial of Greece, or the graver
ritual of Bome, into a serious, highly moral, and blame-
less hierarchy. The Emperor was to be at once the
supreme head, and the model of this new sacerdotal
order. The sagacious mind of Julian might have per-

• Mam. Gnt, Act. c. zxiii. This
clause refers, do doubt, to astrology
and divination.

' See y. L p. 529, one among many

passages ; likewise, the Oratio pre
Templis, and the Monodia.
t Orat. Parent, p. 564.

tmxr. TI. JlTLIAirS NSW PRIESTHOOD.

ceived tiie dangerous power, growing up in the Chi'istiRn
episcopate, which had already encroached upon the im-
perial authority, and began to divide the allegiance of
the world. His political apprehenaiona may have con-
curred with his religions aniraoeities, in not merely
endeavouring to check the increase of this poiver, but in
desiring to concentrate again in the imperial person
both branches of authority. The supreme pontificate of
PoganiBm had indeed passed quietly do\vn with the rest
of the imperial titles and functions. But the inter-
ference of the Christian emperors in ecclesiastical affairs
had been met with resistance, obeyed only with sullen
reluctance, or but in deference to the strong arm of
power. The doubtful issue of the conflict between the
Emperor and his religious antagonist might awaken
reasonable alarm for the majesty of the empire. If, on
the other hand, Julian should succeed in reorganising
the Pagan priesthood in efficiency, respect, and that
moral superiority which now belonged to the Christian
ecclesiastical system, the supreme pontificate, instead of
being a mere appellation or an appendage to the im-
perial title, would be an office of unlimited influence
and authority.'' The Emperor would be the undisputed
and unrivalled head of the religion of the empire ; the
whole sacerdotal order would be at his com- jniim'snfw
mand : Pagftnism, instead of being, as hereto- i*^"™^
fore, a confederacy of different religions, an aggregate
of local systems of worship, each under its own tutelar
deity, would become a well-regulated monarchy, with its

i70

JULIAN'S NEW PRIESTHOOD.

Book HI.

provincial, civic, and village priesthoods, acknowledging
the supremacy, and obe5ring the impulse, of the high
imperial functionary. Julian admitted the distinction
between the priesthood and the laity.* In every province
a supreme pontiff was to be appointed, charged with a
superintendence over the conduct of the inferior priest-
hood, and armed with authority to suspend or to depose
those who should be guilty of any indecent irregularity.
The whole priesthood were to be sober, chaste, tem-
perate in all things. They were to abstain, not merely
from loose society ; but, in a spirit diametrically opposite
to the old religion, were rarely to be seen at public fes-
tivals, never where women mingled in them.*^ In
private houses, they were only to be present at the
moderate banquets of the virtuous ; they were never to
be seen drinking in taverns, or exercising any base or
sordid trade. The priesthood were to stand aloof from
society, and only mingle with it to infuse their own
grave decency and unimpeachable moral tone. The
theatre, that second temple, as it might be called, of
the older religion, was sternly proscribed ; so entirely
was it considered sunk from its high religious character,
so incapable of being restored to its old moral influence.
Tliey were to avoid all books, poetry, or tales, which
might inflame their passions; to abstain altogether
from those philosophical writings which subverted the
foundations of religious belief, those of the Pyrrhonists
and Epicureans, which Julian asserts had happily fallen
into complete neglect, and had almost become obsolete.
They were to be diligent and liberal in almsgiving, and
to exercise hospitality on the most generous scale. The

(8\ots) T&v Sticaiwv, 5s ovk dltrOa rl

fihy hptvSy ri 8^ iSicSrijj. Fragm.
Kpist Uu. k See Epist. xUx.

mS CHAEITABLE INSTrnjTIOSS.

Jews had no beggars ; the ChnBtians maantained, indis-
criminately, all applicants to their cliarity; it was a
disgrace to the Pagans to be inattentive to such duties ;
and the authority of Homer is alleged to show the pro-
digal hospitality of the older Greeks, They were to
establish houses of reception for atrangera in hu

, , '^ . , , ttarlUiljle

every city, and thus to nval or anrpa,sa the insiimuoQa
generosity of the ChristianH. Supplies of com from the
public granaries were assigned for these purposes, and
placed at the disposal of the priests, partly for the
maintenance of their attendants, partly for these pious
uses. They were to pay great regard to the burial of
the dead, a subject on which Grecian feeling had always
been peculiarly sensitive, particularly of strangers. The
benevolent institutions of Chriatianity were to imitsicd
be imitated and associated to Paganism. A tiauiy.
tax was to be levied in every province for the mainte-
nance of the poor, and distributed by the priesthood.
Hospitals for the sick and for hadigent strangers of
every creed were to be formed in convenient piaces.
The Christians, not without justice, called the Emperor
" tlie ape of Christianity." Of all homage to the
Gospel, this was the niost imprrasive and sincere ; and
we are astonished at the blindness of Julian in not per-
ceiving that these changes, which thus enforced his
admiration, were the genuine and permanent results of
the religion ; but the disputes, and strifes, and persecu-
tions, the accidental and temporary effects of bumai,!
passions awakened by this new and violent impulse on
the human mind.

Something hke an universal ritual formed part of the
design of Julian. ITiree times a day prayer
was to be publicly offered in the temples. The
powerful aid of mtudc, so essential a oart of the oldet

472 BELIGIOUS ISSTRUCTIOS, Book III.

and better Grecian instraction, and of which the influ-
ence ia so elevating to the Bonl," was called in to im-
press the minds of the worshippers. Each temple was
to have its organised band of choristers. A regular
system of alternate chanting was introduced. It would
be curious, if it were possible, to ascertain whether the
Grecian temples received back their own music and
their alternately responding choma from the Christian
churches.

Julian would invest the Pagan priesthood in that
Rapa^sK respect, or rather that commanding majesty,
""•"^ witfi which the profound reverence of the
Christian world arrayed their hierarchy. Solemn silence
was to reign in the temples. All persons in authority
were to leave their guards at the door when they
entered the hallowed precincts. The Emperor himself
forbade the usual acclamations on hia entrance into the
presence of the Gods. Directly he touched the sacred
threshold, he became a private man.

It is said that he meditated a complete course of reli-
Rciigiom gions instruction. Schoolmasters, catechista,
iMtracuon. preachers, were to teach, — are we to suppose
the Platonic philosophy? — as part of the religion. A
penitentia! form was to be drawn up for the readim»-
sion of tram^esaors into the fold. Instead of throwing
open the temples to the iree and promiscuous reception
of apostatising Cliristians, the value of the privil^;e was
Ui be enhanced by the difficulty of attaining it" They
were to be slowly admitted to the distinction of rational
believers in the gods. Tlie dii avermucatores (atoning
deities) were to be propitiated ; the believers were to pass
through different degrees of initiation. Prayers, expiar

■ On Mnsic. See Epiat. hi. ■ See Epist. UL

Chap. VI. ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 473

tions, lustrations, severe trials, could alone purify their
bodies and their minds, and make them worthy partici-
panta in the Pagan mysteries.

But Julian was not content with this moral regenera-
tion of Paganism ; he attempted to bring back Animal
the public mind to all the sanguinary ritual of *«***«*•
sacrifice, to which the general sentiment had been gra-
dually growing unfamiliar and repugnant. The time
was passed when men could consider the favour of the
gods propitiated according to the number of slaughtered
beasts. The philosophers must have smiled in secret
at the superstition of the philosophic Emperor. Julian
himself washed off his Christian baptism by the new
Oriental rite of aspersion by blood, the Taurobolia or
Kriobolia of the Mithriac mysteries;' he was regene-
rated anew to Paganism.^ This indeed was a secret
ceremony; but Julian was perpetually seen, himself
wielding the sacrificial knife, and exploring with his
own hands the reeking entrails of the victims, to learn
the secrets of futurity. The enormous expenditure
lavished on the sacrifices, the hecatombs of cattle, the
choice birds from all quarters, drained the revenue.^
The Western soldiers, especially the intemperate Gauls,
indulged in the feasts on the victims to such excess, and
mingled them with such copious libations of wine, as to
be carried to their tents amid the groans and mockeries

• Gregor. Naz. iii. p. 70.

P The person initiated desoend into
a pit or trench ; and through a kind
of sieve, or stone pierced with holes,
the blood of the bull or the ram was
poured over his whole person.

t Julian acknowledges the reluct-

ance to sacrifice in many parts.
"Show me/' he sajs, to the philo-
sopher Aristomenes, ** a genuine Greek
in Cappadoda." T4cos yiip robs fihv
oh fiovXofi4vovs, 6\lyovs dh rivas
i$4\orr€u /u^v, obK tlSSras d\ Bluv^
6pm, Epist iv. p. 375.

TOL. II. 2 1

474

ANIMAL SACRIFICES.

Boos DL

of the more sober/ The gifts to diviners, soothsayers^
and impostors of all classes, offended equally the more
>vise and rational. In the public, as well as private,
conduct of Julian, there was a Heathen Pharissdsm, an
attention to minute and trifling observances, which could
not but excite contempt even in the more enlightened
of his own party. Every morning and evening he
offered sacrifice to the sun ; he rose at night to offer
the same homage to the moon and stars. Every day
brought the rite of some other god. Julian was con-
stantly seen prostrate before the image of the deity,
busying himself about the ceremony, performing the
menial ofiSces of cleansing the wood, and kindling the
fire with his own breath, till the victim was ready for
the imperial hands. The sacrifices were so frequent
that had he returned victorious over the Parthians, it
was said, there would have been a dearth of cattle.*

' I do not believe the story of human
lacrifices in Alexandria and Athens,
Socrat. E. H. iii. 13.

" Jnnumeros sine parBimoni& mac-

tans; ut crederetm*, si revertisaet di
Parthi8|*'boyesjamdefeetaroe. Amm,
Marc. XZ7. 4,

END OP TOL. n.

lONDOS: FBIKTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND ^OXS, LIMITED,
STAMFOUD STREEr A^'D CHAKING CRUSH.

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